Twinning Coordinating Committee – Alice Droogan, Rosemary Plunkett, Ted and Pat Sohn, Christina Soddano, Roxana Soures. 

One of the many ministries at Transfiguration Parish is called Twinning. This ministry started in 2004 under the leadership of Ted Sohn with the help of the PTPA- the Parish Twinning Program of the Americas. Twinning is meant to be a mutually enriching partnership and collaboration between a U.S. parish and an impoverished parish in Haiti or Latin America based on uniting them in faith, prayer, friendship, and service.

Originally, Transfiguration Parish began to twin with The School of St. Joseph the Worker and Our Lady Queen of Peace Parish in Soyapango, El Salvador. Due it a few changes we now connect only with the parish that has been renamed Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in Soyapango. In 2005 both parishes began to exchange annual visits. Over the years, nineteen members of Transfiguration have visited El Salvador seven times and visitors from El Salvador have come to Tarrytown four times. Due to COVID, in the past few years we have connected via zoom with the members of the Twinning Committee in Soyapango on a regular basis. Twinning has involved not just our parishioners but also students at Transfiguration School and the Parish School of
Religion who throughout the years have engaged in activities to raise awareness of the needs of the children in El Salvador.

The primary focus of the program is educational assistance to the very poor students in the parish in the form of scholarships from primary school through college. We also help their parish in other ways, for example; recently we helped to refurbish chapels in some of the poorer areas of the parish. Each year in November and December our members solicit funds from our many donors, which the committee members in El Salvador distribute. One hundred percent of
the money raised goes to El Salvador. Both parishes also unite in mutual prayer and solidarity. We both celebrate novenas in honor of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and Our Lady of Guadalupe to pray for the needs of each other.

Twinning offers a firsthand opportunity to join with and experience the Church in another part of the world. Our guiding themes come from Pope Paul II’s “Church in America": Conversion, Communion and Solidarity. Our meetings on the 2nd Tuesday of the month are open to all and we invite you to join in this ministry. For more information, contact the priory at
914-631-1672.

Members of Transfiguration visit to our Twinned Parish in El Salvador in 2012.   Included in this visit is a visit to the site where four American churchwomen were brutally murdered in December 1980 during the Salvadoran civil war. Archbishop Romero was killed in March of the same year.  This Newsletter contains many pictures which are a good introduction to the Transfiguration Twinning ministry.        

Twin Parishes Link Communities to One Another Across the Continents
Carmelite Sisters Care for Romero Residence