Lauren Crampton, HERC Education Director, presented “The Life and Works of St. Maximilian Kolbe” at Westminster Oaks in Tallahassee. Thirteen residents attended the presentation, which explored the remarkable life and legacy of St. Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish Franciscan priest who was imprisoned at Auschwitz during the Holocaust and volunteered to give his life in exchange for another prisoner who had been selected for execution.  The prisoner he saved survived the war and stood in St. Peter’s Square when Pope John Paul II canonized Maximilian Kolbe in 1982, designating him a saint and a “martyr of charity,” which recognized his death by voluntary self-sacrifice to save the life of a stranger as a witness to the commandment to love. He is a reminder that even in the darkest times, self-sacrificial love defies oppr

Lauren Crampton, Education Director at HERC, presenting to the local community.