By Lois Rogers | Correspondent

While this Advent has been unseasonably warm, forecasters say colder days are just around the corner.

With this in mind the doctors, nurses and staff of Trinity Health and St. Francis Medical Center, Trenton, anticipated needs throughout the area with a blanket collection that will wrap scores of homeless and others in need with warmth.

On Dec. 15, the results of this collection, and taking into consideration the Holy Year of Mercy, filled more than half of the pews in the hospital's beautifully decorated chapel as clergy and members from eight congregations around the greater Trenton area gathered for the annual prayer service for the homeless which traditionally precedes the “blanket pickup.”

Led by Father Carmen Carlone, a priest of the Camden Diocese who currently serves as chaplain in the medical center, the service and blanket pickup are woven into the fabric of Christmas around the state capitol said many of those in attendance including a group from Friendship Baptist Church.

Like many others, they arrived early for this special event where faith and service meet. While waiting for the service to begin, they reflected on the great need in the area and the medical center's role in helping the community.

“There are so many homeless people on the streets, so many sick and shut ins that need help,” said Susan Johnson. She said the blanket pickup and subsequent distribution of the blankets and toiletries to shelters, shut ins and others in need, is but one example of the way in which St. Francis Hospital reaches out to the community.

Looking around as the chapel began filling up, LaVerne McCrae – a church mother in Friendship Baptist – called everyone involved with the effort missionaries. “We're all here to help people. There are so many people who can't help, so many people are homeless.”

Susan Johnson gave examples: “there are so many people on the street and in shelters. Last year, I took blankets to the sick and to shut-ins.” This year, she said, she will likely do the same.

They all praised the medical center for the way it continues to embrace the needs of the poor and indeed the needs of the entire community with programs on nutrition geared toward helping people with diabetes, cancer and the like.

They were especially upbeat about the six-week “Daniel” wellness plan many had attended linking healthy nutrition and spirituality.

The medical center and the churches work well together, they agreed. “We're here to support St. Francis,” said Phyllis Crear Chastene-Parrish.

In his homily, Father Carlone offered the same sentiments, noting that this was a gathering of friends who work in harmony to make a difference. The blankets and toiletries to be distributed are but one example, he said, of the way the faith communities seeking to solve the problems of the area.

He commended those present saying, “we are here because we believe anything can happen,” when people work together. To illustrate this, he shared a lesson a story called “Stone Soup” that he encountered in Catholic school in fifth grade.

Father Carlone repeated the tale of how two clever soldiers in Croatia convinced starving villagers to save themselves by contributing what little food each had to a boiling cauldron of water and a hand full of stones – the ingredients for “stone soup” -- which everyone could share.

Because they shared, they had enough stone soup to last through a bad winter.

Throughout his 47 years as a priest, Father Carlone said that story has always stood out. “If (everyone gives” just a little bit of what we have, if we all take a little bit … it doesn't matter how little, if you are willing, God will take it. … There's more faith in this room than the world outside so go make stone soup.”

As the blanket distribution got underway, Doris Clark-Lewis, parish nurse in Blessed Sacrament-Our Lady of the Divine Shepherd Parish, Trenton, said this was the “message you need to hear … serving others in need … it's the message of the Church.”