News - October 2017 RSS Feed

Sunday, Oct. 29th in Bradley Centennial Hall. Click link for full details and our flyer. We need volunteers to help! We also need food donations, donations of theme baskets, donations of pies. You can purchase your $20 raffle ticket on line at this link! https://smaolean.org/spaghetti-dinner-raffle Please join us for a great afternoon beginning at 12:30pm.

 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  |  September 22, 2017   National Life Chain Sunday comes to downtown Olean October 1st (Olean, NY) On October 1, the main corridor of East and West State Streets will be lined with people holding signs in silent prayer from 1:30 to 3:00PM. This is part of National Life Chain Sunday 2017, the 30th annual prayer witness that is to take place on "village" sidewalks throughout America and Canada. "The goal of this public witness is to hopefully change hearts, save lives, and further unveil the grievous curse of legal abortion,” said Colleen Crino, an Olean-area pro-life activist who, along with her husband, Mark, lead the pro-life ministry at the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels. While citizens sympathetic to the pro-life cause witness publicly in this manner every first Sunday of the month near Lincoln Park, this particular Sunday they encourage a wider participation of “chainers,” as they call them, to come out as part of the National Life Chain event.  “We witness prayerfully and peacefully, without confrontation, no matter what the weather,” said Colleen Crino who notes that the seriousness of the subject requires participants to adhere to a particular code of conduct. Likening abortion to a national holocaust, the pro-life movement across the nation and here in the Olean area offer this public witness as part of a larger effort throughout the year that includes conducting prayer vigils and public talks, constructing visual displays and offering concrete abortion-alternative guidance and assistance through agencies such as the Southern Tier Pregnancy Care Center here in Olean.  “We do everything we can to give voice to the voiceless and help mothers in the midst of their unexpected pregnancies,” said Colleen Crino.  Have their efforts paid off? The Crinos say they have seen hearts and minds change in the midst of some of their public pro-life initiatives they have been involved with in the area since the early 1990s. Mark Crino points to the story of a woman who was scheduled for an abortion and happened to walk by a display of crosses he was installing at St. Mary's. After talking to Mark for a few minutes, she told him she changed her mind and would elect to keep her unborn child.  “She wanted to know what all the little crosses signified,” Mark Crino said. “I told her they each represent an innocent human life killed in abortion. And as we looked over so many dozens scattered throughout the lawn, I explained that this is how many are killed each day just in New York State alone,” he said. “We’re not confrontational or judgmental,” he added. “We just want to help save lives and give hope.” The October 1 Life Chain begins at 1:30PM with participants asked to come to Lincoln Park at 1:15PM to register and select a sign to hold during the duration of the hour and a half silent witness. More information on the National Life Chain and can be found at…