CHARLESTON — Mary Helen Frick and her friend Bridgette Kelleher have found a unique way to take a senior trip, by making and selling rosaries.
The two Bishop England High School students are planning to join their classmates on a pilgrimage to Rome.
The trip begins March 24 and costs $2,100. Students are required to bring their own spending money. The 17-year-olds’ parents are helping them with the trip expenses, but the teens will supplement this help with the money they earn.
Mary Helen is paying for half of her trip with money she makes working in a part-time job as an administrative assistant in an orthodontist’s office.
Knowing those funds wouldn’t be enough, Mary Helen spoke with her theology teacher, Tom Provost, who is leading the trip. He suggested the teens try making rosaries. She and Bridgette decided to make them with beads they bought locally and with crosses ordered on the Internet.
The two girls have approached the project with entrepreneurial en-thusiasm. Mary Helen has already earned more than $600 from her handiwork. She started off with a craft fair at her parish, Blessed Sacrament. Her mother is an assistant at the school and showed the rosaries to teachers, who placed orders.
Bridgette said she hopes to sell more, too, and is busy making rosaries to meet the demand.
The two teenagers sell the large rosaries for $15, and the small finger rosaries for $2. To place an order, e-mail RosariesforRome@yahoo.com.