BRIDGEPORT – Across the United States, many urban areas have established chapters of an organization called Young Catholic Professionals: a non-profit organization seeking to bring together professionals in their 20s and 30s united by their Catholic faith. And recently, one of its newest chapters made its home right here in Fairfield County.
The effort to bring YCP to Fairfield County was spearheaded by Fayne Mascarenhas and Stephanie Vargas, now the president and director of marketing of the Fairfield County chapter. The two attended a larger YCP conference and felt Fairfield County might be a suitable location for a chapter, given the concentration of corporate businesses in the area.
In addition, Fairfield County is also the fastest-growing county in the state, and Connecticut is the third most Catholic state in the country, according to YCP Fairfield County’s website. All of these factors contributed to the thought that Fairfield County could be an ideal home for YCP.
With the approval of Bishop Frank Caggiano and the Diocesan Young Adult Council, as well as a grant from Foundations in Faith, the Diocese of Bridgeport was on their way to becoming home to a YCP chapter.
The group kicked off with a launch party earlier this year on March 19 – the Feast Day of St. Joseph – at Church of the Holy Spirit in Stamford. This was apt for the organization, who calls St. Joseph its patron.
According to Diane Kremheller, the director of evangelization for YCP Fairfield County, the launch party both surpassed her expectations and really allowed the organization to hit the ground running.
“We had a line of people out the door,” Kremheller said. “People didn’t want to leave. The feedback that I got afterwards from friends and family … they just thought it was phenomenal.”
Since launching, YCP Fairfield County has offered a variety of events focusing on career development, networking, volunteering and faith formation. The chapter hosted Tom Kolenberg for its first executive speaker series in June. Kolenberg, a senior vice president at Merrill Lynch, discussed how he lives his faith at work, engaging his clients in conversations about God and encouraging them to return to the sacraments.
Kolenberg’s speech particularly resonated with Kremheller.
“Faith can’t be something that you put in the corner for Sunday,” she said. “It has to be lived every day. And YCP, I think, is going to be very important in sort of enabling people to do that and giving them ideas of how to go about that.”
YCP also offers volunteer opportunities and collaborates with other organizations on faith-based events. The group volunteered at Malta House, a transitional housing program for pregnant women, in July. They also recently collaborated with the Stamford young adult group for its monthly young adult Mass in September.
As YCP looks forward, there are a few other exciting events on the calendar before the end of the year. They plan to host Stephen Auth, a board member of the Lumen Institute, in early October. Founded in New York in 2005, the Lumen Institute provides faith-based formation for business and cultural leaders.
As the chapter’s director of evangelization, Kremheller plans to bring a hallmark of YCP to the Fairfield County chapter: St. Joseph Saturdays. According to YCP’s website this program offers “free half-day retreats for busy professionals wanting to re-center themselves.”
“Young professionals can’t always go away for a whole weekend and travel and all that,” she said. “They basically encourage each chapter to once a quarter have these St. Joseph Saturdays, where you go to a church … and you do Mass, Adoration, and you have a talk, things like that.”
YCP membership is open to young Catholics in their 20s and 30s. To learn more about the organization’s Fairfield County chapter and its upcoming events, visit www.ycpfairfieldcounty.org.
