Programs
What the Foundation does
Three kinds of service across Iberia, St. Martin, and St. Mary parishes, run by volunteers who all have other jobs. The Foundation's four cardinal principles — manhood, scholarship, perseverance, and uplift — are what the work is built on, with particular attention to early adolescent and young adult males.
STEM mentoring
The Rho Omicron STEM Mentoring Program gives guidance and support to males aged 11 to 17. STEM and mentoring activities run every month — some at the Friendship Center, some at locations away from it — and the Foundation provides meals, and transport to anything off-site. Career planning is part of it.
Contact Bishop Darren Sophus on (337) 256-3715.
Community services
The members of the Foundation provide resources and programmatic assistance to elderly, less fortunate, homeless, and underserved citizens across Iberia, St. Martin, and St. Mary parishes — the same members who run everything else.
What that assistance covers case by case, and how to ask for it or offer it, aren't published yet.
Adopt-a-road
The Foundation has adopted two stretches of roadway — Hopkins Street in New Iberia and Main Street in St. Martinville — and carries out routine litter abatement on both.
How often each stretch is walked isn't published.
Taking part
Getting involved
To get a young man into the STEM Mentoring Program, contact Bishop Darren Sophus directly — his number is listed with the program above.
For anything else — time you can give, or an older neighbor who could use a hand — call or write the Foundation. There's no sign-up form for any of it, and you'll reach someone on the board rather than a ticket queue.
Also
Scholarships
A $1,000 scholarship is awarded every year, by the Rho Omicron Chapter and the Foundation together, to a graduating high school senior in the three parishes. How it's decided and how to get an application are on its own page.
Still confirming
Two things worth saying plainly. Tutoring isn't running this year — the Foundation's effort is going into the mentoring program instead. And this page is still thinner than the work behind it: what's missing is the detail of the community services work, and photographs of any of this actually happening.