The humanitarian organization Caritas, based on the voluntary work of its members and in cooperation with the manager, fr. Robert Rackley, has been serving every person in need in the diocese for forty years.
Some of these activities include:
-Visits at the Nursery Homes founded by the Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox Church and the Municipality of Corfu. Volunteers distribute clothes, personal hygiene items, desserts and entertain the elderly.
-Visits at the penitentiary institutions of Corfu, where the prisoners’ priest supports Catholic prisoners with his pastoral care and the provision of basic necessities, phone cards, cigarettes, stationery etc. to various inmates.
-Distribution of clothing, shoes, blankets and toys throughout Corfu (wherever it is needed).
-Moral and material support to parishioners and to anyone in need.
-Distribution of packages with food or vouchers (40-50 euro) to poor families during Christmas and Easter holidays.
-Financial support (such as the payment of electricity bills and rents, provision of medicine and food and, in emergency cases, covering of rents outside of Corfu) to people with serious financial problems, mainly Catholic parishioners or foreigners that live in Corfu in poor conditions.
-Transport expenses of immigrants from the detention centers of Corfu to Ioannina.
-Organization of a bazaar of clothes, books and toys.
ELDERLY CARE UNIT “SAINT JOSEPH”
The Elderly Care Unit “Saint Joseph” was established in 1927 and its construction works were completed a decade later. Initially, the unit operated in the premises of the Monastery of the Franciscan Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus from Malta (est. 1862, year of settlement in Corfu: 1907) – later on in an adjacent area – who manage this missionary foundation to the present day. In 2007 there was a radical renovation and extension of the buildings with a capacity of accommodating 40 people.