Over the last two years, St. Mary of the Rosary Catholic Parish, based out of Chewelah, has raised more than $40,000 to help support the people and communities of Malawi, Africa. This spring, St. Mary’s is looking to raise another $15,000 to build two wells that will provide clean, running water in an extremely rural area of Malawi.

St. Mary’s parish organizes the annual “Malawi Fund” campaign during Lent each year, the six weeks before Easter. In Lent 2023, more than $20,000 was raised in support of tuition assistance for high school girls attending an all-girls Catholic school. The next spring, the 2024 Malawi Fund raised another $20,000, with $10,000 going toward finishing the construction on a new school administration block making more space for teachers, staff, and student services. The additional $10,000 was distributed by the school to purchase truckloads of maize to feed the surrounding community as they were experiencing a severe famine due to failing crops.

During his first year as pastor at St. Mary of the Rosary, Fr. Vincent Gilmore brought the idea of supporting the people of Malawi to south Stevens County because of his already existing connection with the developing country. Fr. Gilmore’s former parish in the Seattle Archdiocese had formed a sister relationship with a Catholic diocese in Malawi, and regularly supported their community. This support included funding wells to provide clean water and eventually leading mission trips to see the people they were helping, which also allowed them to see the wells in operation. Fr. Gilmore was able to go on the first mission trip and saw firsthand how gracious, faithful, and joyous the people were to have so much support from a community so far away.

In mid-2022, Fr. Gilmore was newly assigned as pastor at St. Mary of the Rosary in Chewelah, in the Diocese of Spokane. This was also around the same time that one of his former parish staff members, Hannah Graves, decided to move to Malawi to teach English at Our Lady of Lourdes All-Girls Catholic School. Fr. Gilmore saw a chance for a continued relationship with the people of Malawi and Graves became a valuable direct contact for St. Mary’s. She was able to identify specific needs of the school and community where she was teaching, and helped guarantee the money was received and put toward what was promised.

During that first year of St. Mary’s Lenten fundraiser, Graves identified needs for tuition assistance and, since 2023, she has sent information on several girls that our local parish has supported in paying for their education. The second year, the school asked that the money go towards finishing the construction on an administrative building that had been put on pause due to lack of funding. Once that was funded, St. Mary’s continued to raise money in support of feeding the hungry in the community. Right before Graves returned home to the United States last summer, she was able to make sure that Our Lady of Lourdes school received all the funds St. Mary’s raised in 2024, and was also able to see the truckloads of maize arrive to their Malawi community.

Graves remains involved in helping support Malawi and St. Mary of the Rosary’s continued fundraising efforts. In November, Graves and Christine Landerholm, who had helped organize and lead the previous mission trips, made a visit to Chewelah to make a special presentation at St. Mary’s. They explained what life is like in Malawi, the impact the parish has made in those communities, and also met with St. Mary’s volunteers about assisting with a possible future mission trip out of Chewelah.

Graves and Landerholm also presented St. Mary’s with a beautiful, brightly colored, original painting of Malawi by local artists, donated by the teachers at Our Lady of Lourdes school to show their appreciation for everyone’s generosity.

Anyone is invited to support St. Mary’s Malawi Fund to make a real difference for those in need in Malawi. The parish’s new local contact is with Fr. Dominic, who served as an associate priest with Fr. Gilmore at his previous pastoral assignment. Fr. Dominic has recently returned to his home country of Malawi to continue his work as a Catholic priest in St. Peter’s Parish, which serves 1,400 parishioners and has nine different parish missions spread out in rural Malawi. When Fr. Gilmore inquired about what needs he might have right now, Fr. Dominic responded with: “water.”

He wrote in a letter to St. Mary’s last week: “Being a local priest serving in a rural parish in Malawi has enriched my experience as a pastor but has also exposed me to another reality, which is a threat to human development….every day, every week, I see women and girls walking long distances to fetch water for domestic use. Most of them are drinking unsafe water from Luwesa River.”

To solve this problem, Fr. Dominic suggested constructing borehole wells in the communities because of their better water quality, reduced reliance on rainfall, cost-effectiveness, and improved health. Each borehole well costs about $7,000.

This year’s Malawi Fund goal is to raise enough money to cover the cost of at least two borehole wells, $15,000 total, with the money going directly to St. Peter’s Parish to hire a dependable contractor to do the work. The six-week fundraiser started this week and ends on Easter Sunday, April 20.

If you would like to contribute to the St. Mary’s Malawi Fund 2025 “Water is Life” campaign, you can write a check to St. Mary of the Rosary (with the memo: Malawi Fund), and mail to: PO Box 26, Chewelah, WA 99109. You can also donate online at chewelahcatholic.org (on the homepage or under News & Events, Lent 2025). Contact St. Mary’s parish office at 509-935-8028 or email [email protected] for any questions.

Fr. Dominic concluded in his letter to St. Mary’s: “When I was at St. Matthias Church, which is twenty miles away from where I stay, parishioners opted to be given potable water over having their grass-roofed church rebuilt, a clear sign that indeed: water is life.”

Here's a personal letter from Fr. Dominic in Malawi

WATER IS LIFE:
    Being a local priest serving in a rural parish in Malawi has enriched my experience as a pastor but has also exposed me to another reality, which is a threat to human development. I have been at St. Peter’s Parish in the Diocese of Mangochi since September 2024 and every day, every week, I see women and girls walking long distances to fetch water for domestic use. Most of them are drinking unsafe water from Luwesa River. I found this as a challenge and an issue worth sharing. St. Peter’s Parish is home to 1400 Parishioners. The Parish has nine mission churches. The biggest problem is lack of access to clean water whose best answer is the provision of borehole wells.
   Access to portable water is crucial for human health, as it prevents waterborne diseases, supports basic hygiene practices, contributes to proper nutrition, and its essential for overall wellbeing, especially in developing countries like Malawi where lack of clean water can lead to significant health issues and hinder economic development.
  To break it down further, the provision of borehole well is a solution because - 1. Better Water Quality: Ground water from borehole wells is usually of better quality than water from shallow hand dug wells, which are more vulnerable to contamination. 2. Reduced reliance on rainfall: Borehole wells reduce the need to rely on rain for Agriculture, which is the main source of food and income in Malawi.  3. Cost-effective: Borehole wells are generally cheaper than gravity fed piped systems, which are typically only found in areas with high population density. 4. Improved health: Borehole wells provide safe reliable water for domestic use such as cooking, washing and drinking. This improves health and reduces the risk of some diseases like cholera.
   In conclusion, the situation at hand within communities around St. Peter’s Parish in the Diocese of Mangochi, needs an urgent attention. When I was at St. Matthias church which is twenty miles away from where I stay, parishioners opted to be given portable water over having their grass-roofed church rebuilt, a clear sign that indeed water is life.