Volunteers Needed For Childress Kolbe Prison Retreat

Amarillo—Formation meetings are underway for the final Kolbe Prison Retreat of 2024, at the T.L. Roach Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Childress, according to Deacon Darryl Dixon.

The formation meetings will be offered on subsequent Tuesday evenings from 6:30 to 8:30 in the parlor at St. Thomas the Apostle Church, 4100 South Coulter and will continue until Tuesday, Nov. 12.

The retreat is scheduled Thursday, Nov. 14 through Saturday, Nov. 16.

Deacon Dixon is seeking the support of 30 men from the Knights of Columbus, the ACTS Community and the Cursillo Movement to make the retreat at the Mechler Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice possible.

“We are asking for volunteers for this retreat and any and all assistance to this ministry will be greatly appreciated,” he said.

The Kolbe Retreats are named after St. Maximilian Kolbe, the Patron Saint of Prisoners, according to Deacon Dixon. St. Maximilian was a Polish Conventual Franciscan Friar who was sent to Auschwitz during World War II in 1941. When Nazi guards selected ten people to be put into an underground bunker to be starved to death in punishment for a prisoner escaping in July 1941, Father Kolbe volunteered to die in place of one of the men selected, Franciszek Gajowniczek. Father Kolbe died Aug. 14, 1941 after a lethal injection of carbolic acid. He was canonized as a Saint by Pope (now Saint) John Paul II on Oct. 10, 1982.

For more details or to volunteer to be a team member on a Kolbe Retreat, please call Deacon Dixon at 806-290-8842. The Kolbe Prison Ministry is a 501(c)(3) organization and all donations are charitable donations for tax purposes.