Around 20 carol singers from the St. Michael Catholic daycare centre visited District Administrator Dr Theophil Gallo at the start of the new year, together with teachers Nancy Reid, Tanja Sonntag and Melanie Rupp and pastoral advisor Stefan Pappon. Alongside the town hall and a retirement home in Homburg, the district administration office is one of the institutions where the pre-school children traditionally collect money for children in need as ambassadors for peace in the world. It is an event that has always touched the District Administrator and one that he will miss in the future: "In my role as District Administrator, I am now experiencing many things for the last time. I will certainly have fond memories of the annual visit of the carol singers, as the children always created an encouraging and very cheerful atmosphere. This was also the case during this visit, for which I am very grateful and which I am happy to support with a donation from the Saarpfalz district," emphasised the district administrator during the on-site visit. "I am very pleased that you are helping to organise Epiphany singing so creatively with such open hearts and that you are also learning about your rights, but also about the conditions under which children live in other parts of the world," the District Administrator addressed the carol singers directly.
This year, the Epiphany 2025 campaign organised by the children's missionary organisation "Die Sternsinger" has the motto "Raise your voice! Carol singing for children's rights". The children's mission organisation writes that millions of children are still in great need and provides concrete figures: 250 million children, mainly girls, do not go to school worldwide, 160 million have to work, around half of them under exploitative conditions. With this campaign, the Children's Missionary Society wants to "encourage children and young people to work together with their peers on all continents to ensure that their rights are respected, protected and realised".
In this spirit, the Homburg day-care centre girls and boys, all from the mice group, raised their voices confidently and recited both a poem and a song to the delight of the District Administrator, during which the District Administrator's voice could also be heard discreetly in the background.
Nancy Reid finally affixed the inscription "20*C+M+B+25" - "Christus Mansionem Benedicat" - "Christ bless this house" - to the District Administrator's office door, the anteroom, the conference room and the entrance to the district administration, while the children took the opportunity to look around and ask the District Administrator their questions. Once the children's thirst for knowledge had been quenched, the District Administrator bid them farewell with a bar of Fairtrade Christmas chocolate and a heartfelt "thank you" for their remarkable commitment.
Stefan Pappon informed the audience that the donations collected will go to the Children's Missionary Organisation for its projects around the world.