Saints of America Q&A with Kimberly May

More than 10,000 pilgrims attended the Saints of America Event at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion From July 1st - 9th. We sat down with Volunteer Coordinator Kimberly May to find out more about what goes into organizing this kind of event. 

NASPA Social Media Coordinator Ashleigh Kassock with Our Lady of Champion Shrine employees John Paul Brissette and Kim May at the Saints of America Event July 3rd.

How did the idea for the Saints of America Event come about?

"It was totally the Holy Spirit. We started talking about different ideas last october. The initial idea was to make an event featuring the relics we have at the shrine. When we started looking into what it took to obtain a relic more relics of american saints, we started learning about all the different saint hood causes in America. 

We did some preliminary work and then decided to expanded that to include more and more people such as the venerables and servants of God. 

We formatted the boards based on the carlo acutes eucharistic miracles exhibit which we have every year. We formatted the boards to give some fun facts and some information to want to know more. 

Mary said to Adele “Go out and teach the children,” and that was our goal with this event. 

It was a learning experience. We were learning that a lot of people don’t know about these different causes." 

How did you obtain your list of Holy Men and women?

"It turns out that no one had a definitive list, so we had to make our own, and that list is constantly changing. We had over 76 boards the week we went to print, but then that week the Vatican elevated a couple of people, so we now have over 100 on our list. That has been the interesting part of all this." 

How did the guilds get involved?

"We started reaching out to the guilds in our quest to build our list. At that point, we did not think any guilds would be here in person. But as we started putting this information together, the guilds wanted to be involved. We talked with the National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton in MD and they told us about their Saints festival and the guilds that come and set up tents on their property. We realized we could do that too. 

The guilds were so excited. They brought so much joy to the event, and they enjoyed meeting other guilds. We had 4 different guilds from Louisiana, and one night they decided to make gumbo for all the guilds for lunch on Saturday. 

We never would have imagined having so many guilds over the course of the event. We had over 30 guilds come. You have to be flexible. They all wanted to speak as well so we decided to open some time for speakers after the 11:30 a.m. Mass. We did not come up with a set schedule because the list of who would be there when was very fluid. People did go to listen and we came up with a way to broadcast their talk throughout the shrine. 

How do you manage your volunteers?

We have over 200 volunteers who assist us throughout the year doing events. We do a lot of big events such as the Walk to Mary, which was over 12,000 pilgrims this year in one day. 

We use the Sustain volunteer management system to manage volunteers. We have been using it for over a year. 

Our sweet spot with volunteers is moms whose kids are in high school or college. They are looking for community, and they are also here for sacraments and the rosary. We have a lot of opportunities that other parishes can not offer, because of priest availability. 

How do you prepare for large events like this?

We use a checklist system, which means we go to each different part of our grounds and decide what needs we will have about 6 months before the event so we can be prepared. 

We rent tents a year in advance. Those are essential when the crowds are bigger than your space allows, and for us that is almost every event. It’s a challenge sometimes because we do not do any advance registration

We have a post-meeting after events where each department ads pluses and minuses.

Where were the pilgrims from and how did you keep track of numbers?

We used a car counter to count how many pilgrims and cars. The majority were people from out of town. We saw groups from Florida and California. Many from surrounding states. There were a lot of people from Texas. 

How does the shrine communicate with Pilgrims? 

John Paul Brissette has done a great job of communicating with people. There has been more communication online, people trying to look for live information. 

Historically, the people who were coming are aging and not tech-savvy. We have been getting more responses from online videos we have posted from new people just now discovering the shrine. I was getting messages a month out from all over the United States.

The more information we were able to make available online the better. 

How did you arrange your conference space to accommodate the exhibit and the pilgrims?

This building was set up so we can break it down into different meeting spaces with wall dividers.  We had the exhibit hall with the boards, which led into a large space used for Mass and speakers. 

Also, off from the exhibit hall, we made smaller rooms used for playing videos from EWTN and more speaker spaces. There was something for everybody. Some people wanted to watch the history. Some were audio learners, and then there were others who wanted to speak with people directly, which is where the guilds came in. 

By putting up maps and other information and the timeline, it brought it to the next level and gave it more depth. It gave you different ways to look at the information. 

How did you utilize technology?

We had pull-down screens with trivia facts. We thought we would use them because there might be lines but in actuality it added more depth to the whole exhibit. 

We went with diffused lighting to created a quiet and reflective environment.

We also included the QR codes on each board.

How did you engage families with children?

We had a scavenger hunt. It's a good way to get the kids to focus. Some items were a bit harder to find. Kids would came back through the exhibit multiple times. 

There was one trick question - We had a relic of Mother Teresa because she was given American citizenship by President Clinton. 

We had areas where people could take pictures. Everyone had a phone and everyone wanted their picture taken. People really got engaged in so many different ways. People walked away so excited. 

What is the next step for the Saints of America exhibit?

We are trying to figure out what the next step should be. We had not anticipated so many people wanting the information and wanting to do their own event. There are people from Louisiana who want to bring it into a school. We have received requests from all over the United States. For many of them the exhibit is an interesting way to look at American history. 

For me I personally, the event made me so proud to be American and Catholic. There are amazing people all around us.