Mission's need answered by students

Instead of corned beef and cabbage, the Crossroads Mission received a huge donation of hot dogs for St. Patrick's Day.

Students at St. Francis of Assisi School gathered about 2,500 hot dogs to give to the mission after they learned of a need for that type of food.

According to St. Francis Principal Susan Bostic, the photography club visited Crossroads Mission a few weeks ago to take pictures to enter into a contest through the Diocese of Tucson.

While at the mission, they asked what they could do to help and found out the mission needed hot dogs.

"Here we had all this wonderful bread that was donated, but we didn't have any hot dogs to put in them," said Barbara Rochester, public relations director for Crossroads Mission.

Bostic said the photo club students brought the issue before the school's student council, who took it from there. The president of the student council, Rylie Millner, put it to a vote and the student council decided that it would be a great project for the school.

According to Bostic, since the students wear uniforms they were awarded a free dress day if they brought in a package of hot dogs to fill the buns.

"We gathered 240 packages, and some of them were big packages," Bostic said. "We were ecstatic. As we were unloading the hot dogs at the mission, one of the cooks said they didn’t know what they were going to have for lunch before but now they were going to have hot dogs."

Rochester said they are going to put the hot dogs to good use.

"So now we are going to have hot dogs with everything you can imagine - chili, sauerkraut and whatever anybody wants. We are going to have a smorgasbord of hot dogs. Thank you to everyone who donated. The next drive is ground beef for the spaghetti and macaroni."

Bostic said St. Francis School strives to help others in the community.

"We just finished a penny drive for the Lymphoma-Leukemia Society where we raised about $900. Just last month we raised over $2,500 for the Haiti relief - $1,000 of it went to the Brothers of the Good Shepherd Orphanage in Haiti.”

According to Bostic, her school is now going to concentrate on raising money for the American Heart Association through the Jump Rope for Heart event.

"St. Francis Catholic School looks forward to continuing to be a beacon of hope in our world," she said.