It started in the summer of 2008 when a busload of incoming fifth-grade girls from Esperanza Academy in Lawrence arrived at St. Peter's Church-on-the-Canal in Buzzards Bay for a visit. The church's Mary and Marthas Women's Group (th
e M&M's) took them for a picnic and seaside walk--a first for many of the girls--and sent them home with mementos and M&M's candy. They've been visiting one another every year since, with the M&M's making school visits, knitting hats and scarves for the girls in their yellow and purple school colors and remembering their birthdays and other holidays, and the girls trekking down to Buzzards Bay for town tours, afternoon board games and story sharing at coffee hour. One year there was even a sleepover in the church.
This year, on Jan. 24, three of the M&M's made the trip to Esperanza with belated Christmas gifts in hand. "As our girls are now 14 and not 10, we thought gift cards to a local store was appropriate," they report. "Each and every one has become a wonderful young lady. It has been a wonderful ministry. Looking back today on July 22, 2008, no one would ever say that this relationship would go as it did. There was a bonding from day one and it just grew into something beautiful." The girls graduate from Esperanza as eighth graders in June, and the M&M's plan to be there.