This ministry seeks to strengthen and promote healthy parish families while assisting them in times of need. Family Ministry provides education and information through speakers, activities, and bulletin announcements. Parishioners can take advantage of numerous events sponsored by the group, including St. Nick at Night, Tables for Two, Adoption Is an Option, Family Fun Run, and Marriage Day festivities. Family Ministry also participates in Family Feeding Families and publishes the Faith Integration Action Team newsletter distributed to St. Robert’s School families. Time commitment for participants in each event varies. Family Ministry organizers meet on the first Mondays of each month and commit 10 hours per month for their work.

Grandfriends provides a monthly luncheon for a group of adults age 50 and above, and meets to enjoy entertainment, interesting speakers, and good food. Rides can be arranged and new members are always welcome. A host is responsible for each monthly gathering. He or she can be helped by co-hosts and selects a restaurant, obtains a speaker or entertainment, and conducts the promotion, reservations, and arrangements. Grandfriends assists with special projects such as hosting a Ladies Guild Mass and reception, and also helps with one Donut Sunday Hospitality each year. Meeting hosts spend around 10 hours organizing their monthly meeting and the time commitment can be variable. Sympathy and healing cards are also written. There is no cost for Grandfriends, and members pay for only the cost of the luncheon they attend.

On the first Sunday of each month, Families Feeding Families collects and delivers non-perishable food items contributed by parishioners to the Juan Diego Food Pantry at 31st and Q streets in south Omaha. Empty bags are distributed on the previous Sunday as a reminder to bring something the following weekend. Parishioners return them filled with food contributions (typically there are 75 filled bags even before the Saturday evening Mass). Depending on the vehicles they have available, two or three people load, deliver, and help to unload 1,000 or more bags of groceries monthly. A two-hour commitment monthly is common.

Memorare is an organization of mothers who have experienced the death of a child, and its ministry is to assist other bereaved mothers. Mothers support each other through prayer, sharing, and friendship. Memorare mothers attend the 8:30 a.m. Mass at St. Robert’s on the first Saturday each month, and then have coffee together at a member’s home. Time commitment is generally two hours monthly.

MOMS purpose is to create in women awareness of the inner sacred self, and at the same time teach new ways to inspire, encourage, and affirm each other while bringing new strengths to their family relationships and Catholic community. Mothers are led through an eight-week journey of peer ministry, mutual support through individual and group dynamics, and journaling. Topics include self-esteem, self- acceptance, stress, worries, anxieties, everyday spirituality, feelings, personal growth, expressing values in friendships, and how to continue the journey into their communities. Sessions are usually held each fall and spring for two hours each week. Facilitators devote four hours weekly and other volunteers commit up to two hours weekly.

Assists the St. Robert’s priest with Mass each Wednesday morning at the Montclair Nursing Home. Volunteers prepare the room, assist with the Mass, and help residents with limited mobility in getting to and from the dining room. Time required is two or more hours weekly throughout the year.

New Life functions as a support group for widowed parishioners, those who have been separated by death from their lifelong partners. Support is offered in a number of ways. The newly bereaved are contacted with the group’s expression of sympathy on behalf of St. Robert’s. This group provides emotional and spiritual support through fellowship. Regular monthly gatherings provide a comfortable social setting for the bereaved to find fellowship and access to community programs and resources for the recently widowed.

St. Robert’s Speakers Bureau connects parish organizations and speakers using the parish website. The Speakers Bureau solicits speaker information and forwards it to the webmaster where it can be most widely accessed. Speakers are responsible for providing accurate, timely information to interested groups while projecting a positive image for the parish. Organizations and speakers negotiate their own terms for events and arrange time and location. There are no meetings of the Speakers Bureau, and time commitment varies with the demand for speakers and their availability.

Download the list of Available Speakers

This Catholic lay organization leads women and men to grow spiritually by offering person-to-person service to those who are needy and suffering. It is the world’s oldest charitable organization addressing the emergencies of people in need. It follows Christ’s admonition to go out in the world two-by-two and perform His exhortation to assist those less fortunate. Members, known as Vincentians, provide assistance to those with emergency financial problems funded through two special offertory collections at Thanksgiving and Ash Wednesday. Services also include a clothing drive, pantry, and monthly bingo for veterans. New people are always needed and can set their own time commitment.

The Vocation Committee prays for and encourages discernment for vocations from St. Robert’s and the Archdiocese through spirituality and publicity among parishioners. It provides information in the parish bulletin related to vocations, and it promotes the annual World Sunday of Prayer for Vocations on the third Sunday of Easter and 31 Club (where each day of every month one of our parishioners prays for vocations). It also recommends speakers for St. Robert’s seventh and eighth graders’ Vocation Awareness Week, attends priest and deacon ordinations, and organizes excursions to local seminaries and motherhouses. Meets six times each year for an hour on Saturday mornings, and members give an average of up to two hours each month to their work.