Portugal Red Cross Relief

May 2026

In the final few weeks of our spring semester here at Kean, graduating student and KeanCatholics member Melanie Pinho took on organizing her own service project to wrap up our academic year. After visiting Portugal regularly with her family and coming to know of the storm and wildfire damage, she took initiative to run a bake sale table on campus… with great success! Her table and homemade desserts raised a few hundred dollars.

Read below Melanie’s account of her desire to raise money for Portugal storm relief efforts, and her personal delivery of the donations!

"I had this idea for raising up money for Portuguese storm relief because I wanted to help them. It was terrible to see all the damage from storms Kristin, Leonardo, and Marta at the beginning of the year. They never really got a break, it was storm after storm. So I wanted to do something to help them by raising money for their Red Cross.

I worked with Lucia to set up a bake sale, called "Por-Tuga", which featured a Portuguese sweet called Farturas. My mom made them light and fluffy and with much less oil than some other versions. My mom also helped me make flower cupcakes with Portuguese colors to help with the theme. I was glad to see these sweets go fast and raise money for their Red Cross. Lucia and I were trying to figure out how to donate the money directly to them. I was going on a short trip to Portugal with my mom and then it was decided to deliver it to them physically.

We searched for different Red Cross buildings in Portugal and eventually one was found in the hardest hit area, Leiria. The trip there was good, but stormy, there was a point on the bridge in Porto where the rain was so severe, we couldn't really see in front of us. Even with the wipers on full blast, there was barely any visibility, and there was some hail too. It quieted down and at the end of the day, we saw the complete bows of a double rainbow! The next day we went to see my Grandpa in the North of Portugal and on Tuesday we went to Aveiro. The sweets there are very good and so are the codfish cakes that they make there. Next to the codfish cake shop, there was a church called “The Church of Averio's Mercy” that I went in to see. We didn't know, but it was the feast day of Saint Joanna, the patron saint of Aveiro, with a procession later in the day. A couple of days later, we went to Fatíma.

After visiting and making it just in time for the Mystery of Light at the Chapel of the Apparitions, and taking care of what we needed to do, we went to nearby Leiria. As we were driving there, huge swaths of forest looked as if a giant hand just brushed over the trees and pressed down. You could very clearly tell this was the hardest hit area. We went to the Red Cross building there, next to the church of Saint Augustine and I handed in the envelope with the donations to an official there. Then we made our way back to Jersey on Sunday."

Melanie graduated this May of 2026 from Kean University with a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from the Dorothy and George Hennings College of Science, Mathematics and Technology, and aspires to work with animals. Melanie was a joy to have as a regular in our Monday Mass group on campus, as well as our Thursday afternoon Bible study. She was always generous with her time, generous with bringing in cupcakes or baked goods for our study group, and was often chatting about “the ladies,” the chickens her family raises at home.

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