Stony Point: Cleanup Day Focused on the Becchi House

By Fr. Dennis Donovan, SDB

(Stony Point, NY – August 2) – Nineteen students from Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey, NJ, under the direction of Br. Travis Gunther, SDB, spent the better part of the day on Thursday, July 27, cleaning out the large room at the back of the Becchi House at the Marian Shrine in Stony Point, NY. The project is part of Don Bosco Prep’s "Brothers Eagerly Serving Together" (BEST) Program.

The front part of the house is an authentic brick and tile replica of St. John Bosco’s humble home in Becchi (Castelnuovo) in the Piedmont region of Italy. The bricks for the house were shipped from Piedmont. It’s open to the public.

The back part of the house was meant to contain an audio-visual display of the life of St. John Bosco, the history of Salesians, and the history of the Salesians in the USA. However, that project was never completed. The room, a bit smaller than a basketball court, became a storage area for unused furniture. The young men from Don Bosco cleared everything out and broke down the furniture so it could be trucked away to a dump.

After work, Fr. Manny Gallo, SDB, led the team in a Holy Hour before they took off for some recreational activity. The Salesians plan to rehabilitate the room to create a modern display of what was originally intended for the room.