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St. Matthew parochial vicar Father Alvin Yu and members of the San Mateo Serra Club gathered at St. Matthew Church on Sept. 21, the day of the group’s final meeting. (Photo by Nicholas Wolfram Smith/Catholic San Francisco)
September 27, 2018
Nicholas Wolfram Smith
When Jeanette Cook-Barrett joined the San Mateo Serra Club years ago, she never imagined she would watch it close. On Sept. 21, Cook-Barrett, the final president of the San Mateo Serra Club organized its last act. After a Mass at St. Matthew Church commemorating the club and the canonization of St. Junipero Serra, the group donated its remaining funds to St. Patrick’s Seminary & University, and walked in a silent procession to a nearby bust of St. Serra overlooking El Camino Real, where they offered a special prayer for vocations.
Tony Schunk, the district governor of Serra International, presented a check for $5,000 to John Callan of St. Patrick’s Seminary, calling it “a final thank you from Serrans in the county.”
First founded in 1934 in Seattle, Serra Clubs had the aim of promoting vocations through prayer and financial support. But in recent years, clubs on the San Francisco Peninsula have faltered. San Mateo Serra Club stopped meeting in 2015; Serra Clubs in Menlo Park and San Francisco also folded within the past three years.
Serrans said the survival of many voluntary associations like Serra Club was in danger. Older members are no longer able to sustain the duties of organizing events, but the organizations have not been able to attract newer, and younger, people.
“We tried a couple different things to recruit new members, but none of them were successful,” Serran John Barrett told Catholic San Francisco.
Cultural changes may be to blame. Serran Roland Bianchi told Catholic San Francisco membership “became too economically difficult.” People no longer had the time to spend an hour at a luncheon because of their work obligations, he said. Bianchi also said younger people seemed less interested in associations like Serra focused on prayer and spiritual formation, instead preferring groups committed to carrying out specific activities.
His wife, Judy Bianchi, told Catholic San Francisco she thought young people were “still searching,” but felt drawn to different organizations, like Newman Centers, to find a sense of belonging.
“It’s a whole different ballgame trying to attract young people,” she said.
While the needs Serra Clubs addressed have remained, the emphasis on them has diminished, Roland Bianchi said. His generation grew up in a Catholic culture filled with daily contact with priests and religious. Today, he said, “the clergy has diminished, and the call to vocation has diminished.”
Every organization is going through this, said Judy Bianchi. “A new generation is not rising to assume leadership,” she said.
Cook-Barrett, said the demands of organizing activities together simply became too much for an aging membership to sustain. Cook-Barrett said she missed gathering with her friends at Serra Club, along with the insight meetings gave into the spiritual journeys of priests and religious.
“A priest would come and talk about his upbringing, his calling and faith formation, how his family reacted when he was called – his path in life as a servant of God. That’s what I miss the most. You normally don’t have that connection,” she said.
Father Alvin Yu, parochial vicar at St. Matthew Parish, told Catholic San Francisco that while the official club has gone, its mission remains.
“We don’t stop praying for vocations because Serra Club isn’t there,” he said.
Its end, he hoped, could even become a chance for families and parishes to assume responsibility for vocations.
“It’s an opportunity to encourage considering this life in our own families,” he said.