How to Get Your Serra Club to Thrive During the Pandemic

We need to be creative in reaching out to support our priests, seminarians and consecrated orders.  We can use this time to strengthen our Serra Mission.

Recently, the U.S. Council Board had a brainstorming session on ways to keep our clubs and their activities thriving during the pandemic. I am including here a link to the fruits of our session for your own use in your club. I would recommend you conduct a similar brainstorming session with your local club leadership as well.

Now is the time to be curious and courageous with regard to the wonderful communications services offered to us by technology. It might be a little intimidating, but don’t let that stop you. I tried to set up a Zoom meeting and signed up for a trial run.  However, I was the only one who could not get into the trial! So I contacted our new regional director, Jerry Biese, and asked him if he would learn how to run a Zoom meeting.  Jerry accepted the challenge and we had our first district-wide Serra meeting with about 60 attendees.

Father Stephen DeLacy, vocation director for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, wants to organize six new Serra clubs in his archdiocese for vocation work. To that end, U.S. Council Northeast Region Director Mark Bonkiewicz, five Philadelphia Serrans and I took part in a virtual rally introducing Serra to over 100 potential new members in that archdiocese.

If you would like speakers for your electronic meetings, please let us know.  The Serra Board is willing and ready to help.  If you would like to try to start a new club with electronic gatherings, let us help.

Please feel free to call or email me if you have questions.  Remember our patron saint’s slogan, “Always Forward, Never Back.”