Mother Cabrini Sunday: Parish Toolkit

What You Can Do: Ideas for Parishes

Easy Ways to Participate

Good for any parish, even if you’re brand new to Mother Cabrini Sunday.

Share Mother Cabrini Sunday with your parish. Use our ready-to-go bulletin announcement, parish email, social media graphics, or posters to introduce Mother Cabrini Sunday and raise awareness about foster care and adoption.

Include a Prayer or Blessing at Mass. Add our Prayer of the Faithful for children and families touched by foster care and adoption, or offer a special blessing for foster, adoptive, and kinship families. You can also invite your pastor to briefly share during the homily or announcements about the needs of children in foster care and how the parish can get involved.

Make a Brief Announcement. Use our sample announcement at the end of Mass to introduce Mother Cabrini Sunday and invite parishioners to consider how they can get involved.

Set Up an Information & Sign-Up Table. Give parishioners a place to learn more and take a next step after Mass. Provide information about Mother Cabrini Sunday and use our interest form to identify foster, adoptive, and kinship families, potential volunteers, and people interested in learning more about fostering or adoption.

A Little More Involved

Add an activity that gives parishioners or families a way to participate.

Host a Reception After Mass. Create a welcoming space for families and parishioners to gather. Keep it simple with coffee and donuts, or add Mother Cabrini prayer cards, information about foster care and adoption, children’s activities, and information about local opportunities to serve.

Run a Donation Drive. Partner with a local foster closet, agency, or organization serving children and families. Ask what they currently need and accept, then invite parishioners to contribute. See our Donation Drive Toolkit for step-by-step guidance.

Offer Activities for Children. Help children learn that all children need love and care and that sometimes families need help. Set out a Mother Cabrini coloring sheet or craft after Mass, or incorporate one of our activities into religious education. See Ideas for Kids below.

Bigger Parish Opportunities

Use Mother Cabrini Sunday as the centerpiece of a larger event or the beginning of something ongoing.

Host a Foster Care Awareness Event. Invite a local foster care professional and foster or adoptive parent to share about the needs in your community and ways parishioners can respond. Springs of Love provides a toolkit to help you plan the event.

Host a Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot Screening. Get information on how you can host a free screening. This feature film tells the incredible true story of how a small, rural church community changed the lives of 77 of their county’s most difficult-to-place children within the foster system.

Host a Springs of Love Video Watch Party. Choose one or two of our short video stories about fostering and adoption and pair them with guided small-group discussion.

Hold a Foster & Adoptive Family Meet-Up. Invite foster, adoptive, kinship, and discerning families to an informal gathering where they can meet one another and begin building community.

Invite Families into Building Belonging. Use Mother Cabrini Sunday to introduce foster, adoptive, and discerning families to our Catholic small-group series and gauge interest in forming a local group.

Projects for Teens

The following service projects are great for your youth group or another group of teens or young adults. Ideally, these activities should be approved and overseen by an adult or youth group leader. Whenever interacting with children, make sure to include appropriate adult supervision and whatever safeguarding requirements your parish uses. 

Serve a Family You Know
If your parish or group is connected with a foster, adoptive, or kinship family, start by asking what would be helpful. Here are some ways you may be able to help:

• Make a Freezer Meal: Prepare a family-sized meal that can go straight into the freezer for a busy night. A group could make several meals at once. Meals that are easy to freeze and reheat include lasagna, cheesy chicken broccoli and rice, burritos or enchiladas, chili, and chicken soup. Tip: Make sure to check with the families you are serving about any dietary restrictions.
• Bake Snacks or Treats: Make muffins, breakfast bars, cookies, or another easy snack for the family to have on hand. Tip: Don’t forget to plan around any dietary restrictions.
• Give a Family an Afternoon: Ask the family, “What could we take off your plate this weekend?” Spend a couple of hours helping with something practical, such as weeding, organizing toys, clothing, or seasonal items, cleaning outdoor toys, sweeping the garage, or tackling another household project.
• Do Fall Yard Cleanup: Gather a few friends to rake leaves, pull weeds, pick up sticks, clean up outdoor toys, or prepare the yard for winter. This feels especially natural for a November service project.
• Clean the Family Car: Wash and vacuum the family’s car or minivan. Anyone who has seen the back seat of a vehicle full of children will understand that this qualifies as a corporal work of mercy.
• Help With the Kids While Parents Get Things Done: With the parents present and appropriate adult supervision, teens could play games, do crafts, read to younger children, or play outside with them while the parents tackle another task.

Serve Families in Your Community
These activities can be completed in an afternoon and donated through a local foster care agency or other organization serving children and families. Before getting started, contact the organization to find out what it currently needs and what types of donations it can accept.

• Volunteer Behind the Scenes: Ask a local foster care organization whether a group can spend an afternoon sorting donations, organizing a supply closet, packing bags, preparing materials for an event, or completing another practical project.
• Make Fidget Toys or Sensory Items: Spend an afternoon making simple fidgets or other sensory items that an organization can distribute to children and families.
• Make No-Sew Fleece Blankets: Make soft blankets to donate to an organization that provides comfort or welcome items to children entering foster care.
• Make Advent Activity Kits: Create simple family Advent kits with prayers, coloring or activity sheets, crafts, and other materials that a Catholic organization or parish ministry could distribute.

Projects That May Require a Donation Drive
For these activities, your group may want to organize a donation drive ahead of time to collect the supplies you’ll need. Create an online wish list or provide parishioners with a list of requested items. Check out our Donation Drive Toolkit for ideas to help you promote your project and collect supplies. Be sure to ask the organization you’re supporting what items it currently needs and accepts before beginning your collection.

• Assemble Activity Bags: Create grab-and-go bags with coloring supplies, small puzzles, card games, stickers, craft projects, journals, or other age-appropriate activities.
• Assemble Welcome or Comfort Kits: After checking with a local organization, collect and assemble the items it needs for children entering foster care. You could offer different versions for young children and teens.
• Create Teen Welcome Kits: Focus specifically on older youth with items an agency requests, such as toiletries, journals, art supplies, water bottles, cozy socks, or gift cards.
• Create Craft Kits: Pre-package everything needed for one activity, such as friendship bracelets, painting, ornament-making, or another simple craft. These could be used at foster-family events or distributed to families.

Mother Cabrini Sunday – November 8

Everyone can do something. This Mother Cabrini Sunday, we join Catholic parishes across the country in praying for children and families touched by foster care and adoption and considering how each of us can help.

Not everyone is called to foster or adopt, but we can all support the families who do. [Insert parish-specific invitation or activity here.]

Inspired by St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, may we continue her legacy of welcoming and caring for vulnerable children and families in our own communities.

Join Us for Mother Cabrini Sunday – November 8

Everyone can do something. Not everyone is called to foster or adopt, but each of us can play a part in caring for children and supporting families.

On Mother Cabrini Sunday, Catholic parishes across the country are invited to pray for children and families touched by foster care and adoption, raise awareness of the need, and consider how we can help. Inspired by St. Frances Xavier Cabrini’s legacy of welcoming vulnerable children with love, faith, and dignity, we are called to continue that spirit of care in our own communities.

Here at [Parish Name], we are [briefly describe what your parish is doing: collecting donations for a local foster care agency / recognizing foster, adoptive, and kinship families at Mass / inviting parishioners to learn more about fostering and adoption / building a Springs of Love ministry].

Want to get involved? [Stop by our table after Mass / scan the QR code / visit ______ / contact ______] to learn more, volunteer, or connect with our parish as a foster, adoptive, or kinship family.

Together, we can help make sure no family walks alone.

Good morning! Today we are celebrating Mother Cabrini Sunday, a day to pray for children and families touched by foster care and adoption and to consider how each of us can help.

Inspired by St. Frances Xavier Cabrini’s legacy of caring for vulnerable children, Mother Cabrini Sunday reminds us that everyone can do something. Not everyone is called to foster or adopt, but we can all pray, raise awareness, and support the foster, adoptive, and kinship families in our communities.

Here at [Parish Name], we are [briefly describe your parish activity or effort].

We invite you to [stop by our table after Mass / scan the QR code / participate in our donation drive / visit ______] to learn more and find a way to get involved.

Thank you for helping us build a parish community where children and families know they are welcomed, supported, and loved.

Resources for Pastors

• Blessing Within Mass for foster and adoptive families, children in foster care and those awaiting adoption, and families considering fostering or adoption (PDF)
• Intercessions for the Prayers of the Faithful for Adoption and Foster Care (PDF)

This Sunday, November 8, we’re celebrating Mother Cabrini Sunday! 

Inspired by St. Frances Xavier Cabrini’s legacy of caring for vulnerable children, Mother Cabrini Sunday invites us to pray for children and families touched by foster care and adoption and consider how each of us can help.

Not everyone is called to foster or adopt, but everyone can do something.

Here at [Parish Name], we’re [briefly describe your parish activity or invitation].

[Stop by our table after Mass / Bring an item for our donation drive / Sign up to learn more / Join us for ______].

Together, we can help foster, adoptive, and kinship families know they are not alone.