<!--Caitlin Murray--><table width="234" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" background="http://static.cnhi.zope.net/flashpromo/niagaragazette/images/byline_234x60.jpg" height="60"><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="3" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">By Caitlin Murray</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></font><font size="1" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="mailto:murrayc@gnnewspaper.com">murrayc@gnnewspaper.com</a></font></div></td></tr></table>
When Rebecca Novak took the microphone to tell her story Saturday, she was in tears before she could begin.
Novak, a Niagara Falls resident, only recently found a renewed sense of family through Catholic Charities’ Multisystemic Therapy program. Before turning to the program, her son was missing school, smoking marijuana and acting out.
“It was depriving all of us from being a family,” she told a crowd of about 85 volunteers.
But these days, her son has been attending school steadily for months without the acting out that left her family afraid.
“The help we are getting from the program and Catholic Charities is really giving us hope,” she said.
She is like the 14,000 others in Niagara County supported last year through the Catholic Charities’ various community outreach programs, she said. Her story served as an inspirational kickoff Saturday to Catholic Charities’ annual appeal, which has a goal of $11 million this year.
The goal is down about $200,000 from last year but up about $100,000 from what was raised in 2008.
Volunteers, about 15 more than last year, were trained Saturday on how help fundraise and heard from speakers like Novak and Bishop Edward Kmiec.
Hard economic times for Western New York and the entire country only seemed to punctuate the need to reach the $11 million goal, even as the same faltering economy will likely make fundraising a greater challenge.
“We are in tough times,” Kmiec said. “Those who were donors before are now perhaps the ones who will need our help or assistance.”
Programs offered through Catholic Charities include mental health clinics for children 5 to 18, the WIC program providing nutrition for low-income mothers and infants, domestic violence offenders rehabilitation and abstinence education.
This year’s fundraising appeal is the organization’s 85th. Every year, more than 160,000 people — about half non-Catholic — are served across the country by Catholic Charities.
“In 85 years, imagine the number of lives that have changed for the better,” said Monsignor Joseph Sicaro, diocesan director of Catholic Charities of Buffalo.
