SALT LAKE CITY — The Saint Carlo Acutis Apostolate, a youth outreach program of the Diocese of Salt Lake City, is offering a unique opportunity to support the ministry: merchandise bearing the images of young saints that is available through a website run by the ministry. All proceeds from sale of the merchandise will go toward supporting the Saint Carlo Acutis Apostolate ministry, which reaches out to young people throughout Utah with the good news of St. Carlo Acutis and his love for the Eucharist.The Apostolate organizes mini rallies in different diocesan parishes and missions throughout the year where the youth can attend Mass, participate in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and hear music and inspirational talks. 
Everyone who helps with the Apostolate is a volunteer, said Michael Edwards, director of the diocesan Youth and Young Adult Ministry, who organizes the rallies. Each rally requires 10 to 15 volunteers, including choir members. The ministry pays for food and travel expenses for the volunteers, as well as materials for the retreats such as prizes for games. 
To help with the budget, Edwards came up with the idea of the merchandise website. “I had gone to some conferences and saw that there were so many vendors with merchandise that I thought it would be great for our apostolate to have merch that is attractive to youth, especially as we continue to do rallies and retreats for the diocese,” he said. “… What better way than to offer high-quality saint products that are focused on the apostolate and our patron saints that the youth (and parents) might enjoy while at the same time helping to fund the apostolate?”
Edwards worked with a Catholic company, Sock Religious, to design the website. The merchandise includes T-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, cups and water bottles featuring St. Carlo Acutis, St. Maria Goretti and Jose Sanchez del Rio. These three young saints are often the focus of presentations during the rallies. The website also includes items sold by a young adult ministry in the diocese, the Zion Catholic Young Catholics.
“As Zion Catholic has started to dramatically increase in numbers and activities, along with the creation of our first-ever diocesan Young Adult Council, Zion Catholic, we felt instead of reinventing the wheel, let’s just combine the two and make the merch store bigger,” Edwards said.
The money collected from Zion Catholic merchandise will help fund the diocesan young adults program, which has a very small budget, Edwards said. 
The young adult program is growing and is having diocesan activities like Catholic Connections 1.0, which will be on May 15 at Saint Francis of Assisi Parish, “where young Catholics can meet each other, have a DJ, play some games and just start to create better connections between the young adults across the diocese,” Edwards said.
A second Zions Catholic social gathering will be on June 13 at St. Francis of Assisi and will include speed dating.
“I think having merch is an important way of evangelizing because as soon as someone asks who is that on your shirt, hoodie, mug, etc., you have an opportunity to talk about the Eucharist (St. Carlo Acutis), forgiveness (St. Maria Goretti), faith (St. Jose Sanchez del Rio), or the growing community of young adults in our diocese,” Edwards said. “It is a win-win.”
The St. Carlo Acutis Apostolate online store is at https://st--carlo-acutis-apostolate.checkoutstores.com/campaigns/st--carlo-acutis-apostolate