The subject was Indonesia --- specifically, the needs of the people in the southeast Asian country that may have been, at the start of Lent, only a faraway place in the minds of local Catholic children.

By the time Lent ended, however, the youth of Los Angeles' Catholic schools and parish religious education programs had not only learned much about Indonesia's needs, they had made concrete efforts to meet those needs. It was part of the Holy Childhood Association's 2007 awareness project, which this year made Indonesia the focus of its annual fundraising drive.

Assisted by the archdiocesan HCA program with the Mission Office, parish schools and religious ed programs devoted time to learning about Indonesia, a predominantly Muslim nation with a growing Catholic population. They noted, with concern, how many Indonesian children are fortunate to receive even one nutritious meal a day, and that only if they are lucky are they able, through a Catholic school in Java, to take home extra rice to their families.

Then, they engaged in their own fundraising efforts. San Gabriel Mission School hosted a fiesta with proceeds targeted to needy children; St. Genevieve in Panorama City donated funds raised from a walkathon; and St. Catherine Laboure students in Torrance collected and rolled coins that might otherwise have gone toward M&Ms for themselves, and sent them to help meet basic food, clothing, educational and spiritual needs of poor children half a world away.