By Susan Gallagher

The Cathedral of St. Helena Parish will provide wood-burning stoves for dozens of Guatemalan homes, to reduce open-fire cooking that fills the rustic dwellings with smoke and sometimes leaves children and adults burned for life.

Lenten giving by parishioners and other contributors generated $22,366 to buy the concrete stoves at $100 each. That adds up to 220 stoves funded through an appeal begun after the Cathedral of St. Helena pastor, Msgr. Kevin O’Neill, V.G., visited the Diocese of Helena’s Guatemala mission in January and observed use of the Onil Stove. He returned to Montana excited about benefits of the stove, designed by a Texas engineer after he observed Guatemalans left scarred by fires. The Cathedral parish appeal for funds played off of the identical pronunciations of the stove’s name and Msgr. O’Neill’s surname.

Human respiratory problems and eye irritation are two common problems blamed on smoke-filled homes in Guatemala. The burns sometimes happen when a woman’s skirt catches fire, or a child learning to walk falls into flames or red-hot embers. On top of those compelling reasons for a switch to stoves is the open fires’ inefficient burning of wood that impoverished Guatemalans either must buy or gather, often from lands already jeopardized environmentally. Producers of the Onil Stove say it requires 60 percent to 70 percent less wood than needed to cook over a fire burning on the dirt floor of a home, sometimes little more than a hut.

Msgr. O’Neill said he was astonished by the extent of the Lenten giving.

“I was hoping we would be able to contribute 100 stoves,” he said. “To double that is an incredible testament to the sacrificial love of the Cathedral family, and there are those beyond the Cathedral who have given, as well.”

Supporters include a Kansas family that visited Helena to check out Carroll College for a son’s potential enrollment, attended Mass at the Cathedral and learned of the stove appeal. Diocese of Helena employees gave $335. Cathedral of St. Helena Parish elementary school children put $236, a lot of it pennies and nickels, into a 5-gallon water jug.

The Onil Stove was designed by Don O’Neal, a retired mechanical engineer who lives in Farmersville, Texas, and organized medical teams to provide aid in Guatemala through a nonprofit corporation. While in the Central American country to lay groundwork in the late 1990s, O’Neal saw burn victims.

“I’m not talking about burns that blister and go away,” he said in a phone interview. “These were life-ruining burns.”

The Diocese of Helena clinic in Guatemala’s Western Highlands often receives babies and small children with burns, said Mark Frei, Helena-based manager of the diocesan mission.

O’Neal looked to his engineering background as he considered how to reduce the incidence of burns. Then he spent a year or so developing the stove at his home in Farmersville, about 35 miles northeast of Dallas. In 2004 the stove garnered one of several Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy, considered the “green Oscar.”

Use of the stoves with chimneys was encouraged by a Spanish-speaking Guatemalan who had heard the O’Neal name, and then spelled it “Onil” on informational material that she printed and distributed.

“It just stuck,” said O’Neal, who did not seek a patent. He figured that if people want to copy the stove and make its use more widespread, so much the better.

Stove production got a financial boost from the Shell Foundation and now takes place at two locations in Guatemala, plus one in Mexico. Thousands of Onil stoves are in use, mostly in Guatemala. The Diocese of Helena mission there sells them at cost to families able to pay, and gives them to those without money.

Donations designated for stove purchases may be sent to the diocese and should be addressed to Guatemala Missions, P.O. Box 1729, Helena, MT 59624-1729. Starting the middle of this month, online giving will be an option on the diocesan website at www.diocesehelena.org/offices/guatemala/donations.html.


Published in The Montana Catholic Online, Volume 26, No. 4, April 16, 2010.