This is an archive page from a previous bus tour. Not all links may be operational.
Current Nuns on the Bus information can be found at www.nunsonthebus.org.

Inga McGlothin

Cincinnati, OH: We don't have enough bus routes. I think that people should be able to get on the bus and go wherever they want to go. For instance, in the morning time, I have a young lady who gets on my bus and she drops her child off to daycare, but she has to wait between 45 minutes and an hour just to connect to go back to her job. So she has to get up like 3 hours early just to make it to work on time. So the biggest challenges that I see are transportation. We need more buses. We need more bus routes.Read more

Mayan Stickel

Indianapolis, IN: Shopping malls and construction on all these things that aren't really used that much and aren't useful, I think they should put the money towards more soup kitchens and more, things that people need more than they want.Read more

Marlowe Tulloch

St. Louis, MO: I remember that Saturday when Mike Brown was killed. I remember happening upon the news and watching this kid's body laying in the street...hours...I remember the blood triggering me to a state of anger like, I had never been there before because I could only imagine if that was our boy, if that was my grand-boy. I wanted them to allow his family to get him out of the street. I wanted him to be treated with a level of dignity and respect, just some humanity, but that's not how they handle that. So for hours, this kid's body...I don't care what he did, that's hoRead more

Maynard Cabrillas

Evansville, IN: The decision of the Supreme Court to buy our election, called Citizens United. I don't know how we can talk about it and...let the media listen to us because I think the biggest beneficiary of that decision is the media.(Crowd gasps and several 'yes' statements can be heard)So I think that talking about Citizens United is important, but nobody's...The debate last night they didn't talk about it and I think nobody will. What are we going to do about that?Read more

Diane Buchanan

Cincinnati, OH: She's not included in anything anymore. There's no agencies to help. I'm her mother. Her father lives out of town, so does her sister. So she only has me. I am trying to come up with agencies that will help her. There...I told them at the table, I was told a few years ago that she'll get help when I die. Well, that's too late. She is a person. She is a taxpayer. But she can't get help. I don't know who to go to anymore.Read more

Matt Habash

Columbus, OH: If we're really going to close the meal gap in this country, we've got to have an "end the line" strategy. So we call it "feed the line and end the line." Feeding America calls it "feed and lead." What we're trying to start...They called it "shorten and strengthen." We said that wasn't bold enough. We wanted to end it. We will continue to feed. We will get 50% bigger than we are right now. But the idea is we also want to engage in "ending line" conversations. How do we get the wage up? So we took our own--was it a year ago we did in?Read more

Anika Rogers

Nashville, TN: I was in foster care at a very young age. I started to be molested at a very young age, by the age of 5.Read more

Amma Boakye

Indianapolis, IN: I think it's important to, kind of, get out of your neck of the woods and ride the bus somewhere, walk somewhere, and talk to somebody that you don't talk to all of the time, just on an individual level.Read more

Jacques Angelino

Columbus, OH: I have been working with the poor since the summer of '68 when I was with the Community Action Program in East Texas and I've become an expert on rural poverty in Appalachia, Ohio, having been helping a food pantry every Monday for the last 11 years. I see it every Monday. I see it as you know during the week too because I help out in Columbus, Ohio.Read more

Zac

Indianapolis, IN: I think we have a strong need to address and to encourage the GLBT community to be active members of our Catholic faith. Not only to be members, but to be welcomed members, to feel  a part of this community. All too often I think they get individual parishes or individual communities that are open to that. But, I think to have such a public acceptance and inclusiveness that from...our hierarchical structure is  making it very difficult for them to feel that they're part of this community, even though they may have been raised Catholic, or may have been raised CRead more

Sean Delaney

Indianapolis, IN: She was...her parents wanted her to go to a really, really, really good school because they thought she was brilliant. They wanted her to get educated, really well-educated. So, when she got there, she had to be taken by the marshals because of all the riots, you know. When she got there, she didn't do anything. She just walked. She just walked up into the school and people were shouting at her. One person said to her that if she...The one person said that she was going to murder her.Read more

Danny

Wheeling, WV: One of the first things I noticed when I moved to East Wheeling after growing up in the country is that kids had very little connection with things natural. So, even if it was bugs or insects or snakes or dirt or mud, things that grow, all the things that I found really cool as a kid and made me feel connected to the ground that I stand on weren't happening here in East Wheeling. So that was my original motivation to try to get kids off the concrete and get some kind of connection with the natural world.Read more

Elsie Lindstrom

Indianapolis, IN: So, there is a, I guess, a divide of food access, especially in our city. There's been a lot of debate about food deserts. We've got a lot of the most impoverished areas, that don't even have access to fresh fruits and vegetables, or even within walking distance to a place where they could purchase those items. But then on top of that, you know, there's an education gap, education divide, where, even if they were able to access these fruits and vegetables they don't necessarily have the knowledge to how to prepare them or how to even cook them.&nRead more

Barb Geitgen

Indianapolis, IN: I think everybody wants to be heard. It's important to just be able to share your thoughts in an environment like this. Whether or not they're solved, it's just important that they were able to communicate them. I can say that my aunt is a very, very good listener, so she educates us on things that she learns and it's important for us to learn it that way. I also think that it's important to give back to your communities because that is a divide.Read more

Melissa Benton

Indianapolis, IN: I work for the John Boner Community Center here in Indianapolis, Indiana. I'm the resource development coordinator and I'm responsible for bringing any kind of resources to help the Center. So mostly grant writing is what I focus on, but whole our organization is focused on providing social services near east side of Indianapolis resident. Read more

Laura Henderson

Indianapolis, IN: Wow I really feel like there is..there is so for us in our work we were really motivated to get started with Growing Places Indy because of seeing the perception of divide all around us the divide between people and food and their understanding of where food comes from and, even more so, how could impacts not only our physical health, but also our brain development, our mental health and overall well-being. Read more

Joan Hoffman

Evansville, IN: For several months now there've been a group of people in our town who have been meeting to talk about issues that occur in our community, having to do with criminal justice, having to do with race, having to do with poverty. We've talked and talked and we think it's now time to have action, so we have planned a community dialogue where we can bring these issues to the entire community to not only talk about, but take action. That will be on October 24th at the Fine Arts Center in Henderson. We're bringing a key-note speaker in, Lisa Sharon Harper, who...&Read more

Rev. Jay Davidson

Evansville, IN: We think we should be nice to each other and everybody needs to be nice because Jesus was nice to everybody.(Crowd chuckles.)Well, Jesus was nice to most people, especially poor people and disadvantaged people,but to people in power, he was mean and nasty...(Crowd laughs.)and he confronted them head on and we're afraid to do that.Read more

Gary May

Evansville, IN: Who isn't here? I mean we are a bunch of caring, I would assume, compassionate, sensitive, white people. I don't know what the demographic would be in terms of poverty or non-poverty, but I think...we think a major problem is that a bunch of us caring, connected white folks get together to talk about problems that other people have, in many cases, without including those other people. We talked about some options that included, and began with, "Well, what do we have to do to get those 'those other people' here?" Then, we quickly moved from that and decidedRead more

Sr. Sandra Smithson

Nashville, TN: Opportunities are offered to white students that are not offered to black students. We have a galloping illiteracy problem in our school system, in the public school system. We have not addressed the issue of black flight in this city and we, ourselves have left behind large pockets of very poor black people to develop a culture that is not exactly expressive of the kind of values that I think we would want in any civilized society. Sr. Simone (off-camera): Wow.Read more

Megan Black

Nashville, TN: Let's talk about stratification and that certain conversations are only happening in certain spaces. So, that was a big problem for us. This conversation isn't happening as a community because we are so sunk under this notion of the "It" city, Nashville being the "It" city, that is obscuring the conversations that need to happen about the community.Read more

Brendan O'Connor

Nashville, TN: If you look at, you know, a lot of newspapers, but certainly in our region, any popular newspaper publication, like the Tennessean or the Nashville Scene, you just look at the comment section if you want to know where the divisiveness is. It's as vitriolic as possible. A lot of it...if you've see an article on wages or on incarceration, there's somebody, often somebody, often, I think someone who looks like me, a white male, who's somehow either veiled or not, talking...saying there's some racialized reason why our society is essentially stratified by raceRead more

Rev. Jennifer Bailey

Nashville, TN: There's a disconnect here in Nashville between this image of wanting to be the "It" city, this image of wanting to be the next big thing, but forgetting that there's a history. So one of the stories that was told at the table around this question of affordable housing and development was that Marie was talking about a house in her neighborhood, kind of Wedgewood, 8th Avenue corridor that was there one day and gone the next. That the house was a long-standing family in the community and it was obvious that something was happening, but she got home one day and thRead more

Jack Derden

Little Rock, AR: I was just watching TV and I saw these ads about politicians and it wasn't...Say, it was like "Vote for Tom Cotton" and then they say "Mark Pryor's really bad at this. Doesn't do this, and stuff." Or, they're about how great this person was and it doesn't even say what they would do. So...I just thought that they should make the ads more about what they would do instead of what they have done and what the other person is bad at.Read more

Furonda Brasfield

Little Rock, AR: I'm with the Arkansas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. I'm the Executive Director and I work to build constituency groups to abolish the death penalty. Here in Arkansas we have resumed the death penalty after one of the country's longest hiatus in executions. Our governor has set 8 execution date and we're going to do double executions for the next four months. Of course, at the Coalition we believe that the death penalty is fundamentally wrong. We don't think it's biblical.Read more

Kristin Beckum

Nashville, TN: Since the age of 14 I have been addicted to drugs and alcohol. I have used every single day for—I'm 31—I don't know how many years that is. It's a long time. I've been to 13 different treatment centers, hospitals, halfway houses, rehabs and when I came to Magdalene in 2013 my parents were gonna give my kids up for adoption. They were tired of raising them. That was the last thing that really kind of made me look at myself and be like "Okay is that really what I want?Read more

Kimberly Stevens

Nashville, TN: I always was very withdrawn. I was sexually molested at about the age of 3 and I became very withdrawn. I was molested by my uncle and my cousin. I just really grew close to my father and my grandfather. But, as I got older, my mother and father got divorced, my grandfather died, and my life just kind of spiraled. I started going out and I liked boys, but I didn't like boys. I guess the trauma...You know, I always liked being around boys, but I didn't want them to touch me. So I started drinking and then along came the drugs.Read more

Jennifer Clinger

Nashville, TN: By the time women get to the streets, there are several illegal hustles they rely on. Using drugs to deal with everyday life, theft, and then it's just a revolving door from jails, prisons, rehabs, psych wards, streets. A lot of my sisters never made it out alive. I just came to terms with that as "God decided that they had enough and took them home." It's obvious that a broke community got them out there. It only makes sense that a loving community can get them back. She says "I wanna open a house.Read more

Martha Lugo

Nashville, TN: I'm a part of this pilgrimage, march "100 Women 100 Miles." It just took place yesterday.Read more

Rev. Wendell Griffen

Little Rock, AR: I want to talk about the need that Dr. Martin Luther King called for a year to the day before he was murdered, for a "radical revolution of values" away from profits and property to people and personhood so that we began to work across racial, religious, income, class, and regional lines that began to focus on militarism, materialism, racism, and now classism, sexism, and xenophobia. These are the issues that challenge us. Dr. King called for this. It was why he was killed. It is what we still must overcome.Read more

Nancy Mathis

Fayetteville, AR: Our society is full of divides and that's very unfortunate. My experience with St.Read more

Hershey Garner

Fayetteville, AR: We were talking about the misperception that philanthropy in Northwest Arkansas comes from three or four major family foundations and it really doesn't. It comes from people that are in this room, that are working people. The family foundations here don't have to give anything, but we do get crumbs from the table. This notion that Northwest Arkansas is flooded with funds for the things we need from the large major corporate and family foundations just doesn't happen. You see...you see some major gifts, major matching gifts, but they are targeted to things Read more

Judi Neal

Fayetteville, AR: Interfaith Harmony Day, which brings all of the religions together in this room with tables all around, representatives from different religious points of view including pagans and Buddhists and Hindus and Sikhs and several...many denominations of Christian religions. Then, in the center, are a whole set of tables where people come together and dialogue with questions very similar to what we are doing today. That's done once a year and there's plans to do more things throughout the year. One of the things—I was on the organizing committee for several yearsRead more

Lisa Riley

Fayetteville, AR: My son was disabled.He's in a wheelchair. We moved to Fayetteville when he was about 4...Actually moved to Springdale, because the school was further along with inclusion. One thing I do know about Fayetteville, though, is that transportation is very poor. It's hard to access the limited, very limited, bus system that they have and some of the roads are still hard to navigate with a wheelchair. I don't see very many aids for the blind, just signs in Braille that kind of thing. I'd like to see just, access to the community for transportation really; juRead more

Linda Towery and Cindy Wilder-Towery

Topeka, KS: *Trigger warning: This post contains offensive language.*Linda: The group that was here before the service today, of Nuns on the Bus, was called the Westboro Baptist Church. They're known for picketing in this city as well as across the nation.Cindy: If they find out that there's going to be a gay wedding, they'll picket that. Anybody who's passed away in the community, they'll picket their funeral. Whether...Linda: They go across the country picketing military funerals.Read more

Mary Akerstrom

Topeka, KS: We have a lot of people who are not registered to vote in Kansas. There was a very low turnout in the last governor election, so that is one way Republican and Democrats can work together to get people out there and get them voting.Read more

Rabbi Moti Rieber

Topeka, KS: So the thing that bothers the most is the anti-factual nature of politics in this state. The assertion without proof that tax cuts will lead to economic activity or that it's better for people to be forced to work menial jobs in order to get food stamps or other kinds of help.Read more

Jannette Davis

Topeka, KS: Reser’s number one…I worked there for two and a half years. I did a real good job. My work performance was very well, but because of the lack of having degrees and stuff, I was harassed. I was set up, got fired for something I didn’t do. I tried going to Human Rights. They didn’t do anything about it, you know? The only thing they did was write me a letter that said they couldn’t find any proof of harassment. Therefore, I say ‘What about us?’ Why try to work because we have to eat. Several other jobs that I can name…It’s just very hard for us. We cry.Read more

Sr. Janice Thome

Topeka, KS: I’m from Garden City Kansas, which is an hour from the Colorado border and an hour from the Oklahoma border. There I am involved in the Dominican Sisters Ministry of Presence, which is a direct ministry with the economic poor. In our town of 30,000, we are majority minority and those people come from 25 different countries. We have children born in 25 different countries in our school district. They speak over 37 languages because of all the dialects. When I first went there, we were serving a majority of Spanish-speaking in the ministry with the poor.Read more

Joshua Lee Peters

Topeka, KS: Different people had been getting evicted wrongfully. So it’s no longer…You can’t get evicted after three days. You have to go through a court system because before people were getting evicted in three days and they were paying rent. Just because they didn’t show up to the court they got defaults.Cops are nicer to white citizens or Caucasians citizens than African citizens. This is everybody’s residency. We all live in Kansas. Land is shared. Life is difficult, but it’s easier when everybody puts their heads together.  Read more

Susan Tabor

Kansas City, KS: I’m Susan. I’m from the Kansas side. (Laughter from the audience)Actually, I’m from Lawrence so I’m imported.I’m an immigrant. (laughter from the audience)We talked…In Kansas, our biggest barrier is our governor. (Clapping and laughter from the audience)And Kris Kobach (laughter from the audience)Read more

Marvita Oliver

Kansas City, MO: We want to deal with the racial divide that has been...kept going—especially when you look at Troost—in east of Troost and west of Troost, and other areas. We want to look at education. We have some schools that aren’t acredited and other schools that are really struggling. We have to be really intentional about starting conversations and building community. Some of the ways that this is being done right now is with the community gardens. Data shows that community gardens actually build community awareness.Read more

Amber Versola

Kansas City, KS: Disclosure, I ran as a Democratic in Kansas. I’m also a single mom. That’s my 11-year old up here. I narrowly lost a house seat last year. I’m also the vice president of the Women’s Political Caucus and I lobbied for the National Organization for Women in Kansas under Sam Brownback’s first year. So, with that said, I have seen what happens when we don’t have a voice at the table, and that’s that we find ourselves on the menu. We are not only under-represented; we are misrepresented… Sr. Simone (off camera): Amen.Versola: And we need to…I’m finishing up. I’m sorry.Read more

Sunny Hamrick

Kansas City, MO: I’m from Jerusalem Farm. We’re a local [laughing] Thank you. Thank you all. You all are wonderful just for being here. Thank you, sister for being here and bringing all this love to Kansas City. We appreciate it. It just affirms all of the good works that everyone’s trying to do here. One of the issues that we tend to focus on is home repair for people of low income…Sr. Simone (off camera): Home repair?Read more

Naomi Carranza

St. Louis, MO: There’s a lot of discrimination that I’ve faced so many times in my life, throughout the nine years—nine, ten years—that I’ve been living in St. Louis.Read more

Rev. Traci Blackmon

St. Louis, MO: I am a child of the ‘60s and I was born in Birmingham, Alabama so I was born in what many consider the height of the Civil Rights Movement in a city that was intricate to the Civil Rights Movement. As a child, I don’t remember recognizing those divides because my parents worked hard to shelter that from me. But as I got older, I integrated a couple of schools so I experienced a divide a there. I went to schools that were far away from the neighborhood that I lived in, even though I lived in a nice neighborhood. But the neighborhood was segregated. I now know that it was segregated.Read more

Julian Long

St. Louis, MO: Of course, I experience the same divides that everybody in this society does, and I am very much aware, as the sister was saying at the end of her talk, of the fact that my white skin gives me privileges that other people don’t have. But the specific divides that I am here to represent are those on university campuses between adjunct faculty—who really have no status and are paid very badly, have no benefits and so on—and really the rest of the university community. Today, for instance, at St.Read more

Carlita Logan

St. Louis, MO: I think the message that I want to give—just to reiterate—is I think if each individual would take a moment to step outside of their comfort zone, and you can do that in a lot of ways like Sister said—sister said you can be in a coffee shop and say “Hi” to a stranger and say anything to spark up a conversation, or you can pay it forward like you’re in a coffee shop, you can step up and say “Let me buy that cup of coffee for you.”…Those are really simple things to do, but it opens up the world to other people. It slowly lets people into your world. Then they let you into their world.Read more

Terry McCallister

St. Louis, MO: I actually filed for and received disability in 2013. At that time, I had COBRA insurance, which was a little over $700 a month, which is more than half of the disability that I bring in, so I had to drop my COBRA. I had some money in a 401k, therefore I was not eligible for Medicaid and had to wait two years to get Medicare. 60 days from getting my Medicare, I was hospitalized—taken to the hospital in an ambulance, had to stay for three days, had tests ran—and now I am stuck with those hospital bills to pay on my disability income. I’m drowning.Read more

Courtney Brown, Director of Development - Casa Cornelia Law Center

San Diego, CA:  A Story from CCLC - Each week, clients of all ages, genders,  ethnicity, and experiences bring their stories of pain and injustice to the attorneys of Casa Cornelia Law Center in the hopes that they might be able to pursue legal relief.  Read more

Peggy Konert

Fayetteville, AR: I guess one thing that came up is that what some of us are doing is getting involved in more things that involve many different kinds of people for diversity and then just be ourselves. I canvased our whole neighborhood for this civil rights thing and I met every neighbor and told them where I lived, and "I'm the one with all of the flowers. I live with my partner of 25 years." Some were great. Some really didn't want to vote for me and that was okay, but they all know me now and we've all had a one-on-one conversation.(Crowd chuckles and claps)Read more

Peggy Neal

St. Louis, MO: I see our marvelous country just could be ruined. We can’t get on top of the divisions. The only way we are going to get on top of the divisions is by finding common ground. There’s truth everywhere. Truth on all sides. No one side. No one group. No one anything. No one church, religion, or whatever has all truth. I think that we all have a little sliver of it. We’ve got to stop trying to push the whole world into our little sliver. We have to look outside, outside of ourselves and be open to goodness and truth.Read more

Patricia Andwan

Cincinnati, OH: In 2007 I discovered that my home, in a Historic District, was targeted for redevelopment. I became a political activist to save my home and community, running for local office in 2007, 2009 and 2011. Through public record requests, I uncovered much nepotism, misuse of public funds, etc. The entrenched politicians in the Villlage of Greenhills have monopolized the Council for decades. This year no one is even challenging the incumbants. Why? A major reason is the abuse I incurred in 2011.Read more

Sara Damewood

Leesville, SC: Here in South Carolina, I see so much polarization between Democrats and Republicans.   It is so important that we find areas of agreement and learn to have civil, constructive discussions about how we can solve our problems together.    As state team lead for NETWORK of SC, I feel called to help grow our network of members and friends, already in every congressional district in South Carolina, to connect and collaborate with all who want to bridge those divides and transform politics for the benefit of the 100% of Americans.Read more

Lucia Capacchione

Cambria, CA: I studied with Sister Mary Corita at Immaculate Heart College. You may recall that the IHM's got booted out of the church as an order of sisters by the then LA Archdiocesean Cardinal MacIntyre. He perfomed my Confirmation at parochial School in 1950. I learned from the best how women find their voice and I got mine, by doing art posters and making picket signs for Catholics United for Racial Equality (CURE) in the mid 60s.Read more

Susan Carpenter

San Francisco, CA: The stories that sadden me the most in our country are the stories of prisoners. I have worked as a prison chaplain in California so I have experience of this side of life. When people enter our prisons, it is as if their rights are taken away. They are habitually targets for rape and exploitation---both by other inmates and by corrupted guards. They live in isolation and depravation and in fear. I know some maximum security prisons that remind me of our visions of hell. To think that we allow our fellow countryman to live like this is a horror beyond words.Read more

David Campbell

Spokane, WA: We got 9% welfare increase in Washington by getting out thousands of leaflets on homeless children and welfare Read more

Elaine Willey

Dubuque, IA: I am writing to give you my story, a story that resounds around our great state. A story that is sad because our Department of Human Services is tearing apart loving, stable homes and using taxpayer’s money to do it. Here is my story, I apologize I could not make it shorter:1. Families are being founded for abuse, although unsupported by the facts. Due to the founded abuse, the family is denied placement of their children, grandchildren, niece, nephew, etc.Read more

Betty C. Dudney

Nashville, TN: Want to share my new book, also an e-book, only $1.About God is our Mother as well as Father! “ABBA”, the Aramaic word Jesus used, translated into The Patriarchal Biblical word "Father"=Our Heavenly Parent. What is a Father without a Mother? "Equal Rights From God" by B.C.Dudney Amazon.com/dp/151148148xRead more

Arthur Sutherland, M.D.

Memphis, TN: I am a 76 year old retired Cardiologist. Retirement from my practice in 2004 has allowed me to work for healthcare justice. I'm a member of Physicians for a National Health Program and serve as the Tennessee Chairperson. We are advocating for an improved and expanded Medicare for All national health insurance program that would cover everyone in America, including undocumented immigrants. There are marked healthcare inequities in the way we finance healthcare now. This is a pressing social justice issue and needs to be changed!Read more

Lucas Dailey

Madison, WI: In 2009 I quit my job as an architect to build an app that would give people the ability to cross political and cultural divides and contribute to the direction of public policy. We never finished the tool, be the experience led to two more startups dedicated to bringing forth the best of our collective values and ideas. It's a mission I still work on, and I believe technology will allow us better tell our stories and share our values in ways that people on the other side of a divide can understand and learn from, and ultimately lead to better governments.Read more

Sr. Carmen Rostar,OP

Grand Rapids, MI:  She and her husband Anwar lived in Muskegon where she was able to take English classes for a few months and then she found work. They were blessed with three children and moved to Grand Rapids last December. Since they had been in the states for five years, they applied for citizenship and were called to Detroit for their exam in January. Read more

Cecilia Garcia

Chicago, IL: I was born and raised in Chicago, married. Three years ago, my husband, while driving on an expired plate, was pulled over by Evergreen Park Police Dept. After failing to provide proper identification he was escorted to the police station where they contacted I.C.E unbeknownst to me did not know he could be deported. Now I have made it my mission to reunite families who have been separated by deportation while also fighting to have permission granted that will allow for my husband reentry to the U.S.Read more

Diane Nilan

Naperville, IL: For the past 10 years I've been on the road under the banner of HEAR US Inc. (www.hearus.us), my national nonprofit "giving voice and visibility to homeless children and youth." I live in a van, traveling mostly backroads, chronicling the plight and promise of families and youth experiencing homelessness. My videos help schools, shelters and communities hear from those who know homelessness first hand. And being able to speak of one's experiences of homelessness transforms and empowers those too often rendered invisible.Read more

Sr. Theresa Gleeson, BVM

Chicago, IL: Taller de José is a community resource center located in the Mexican-American community of Little Village on the southwest side of Chicago. At Taller de José, we connect individuals to resources and we accompany them as they navigate complex social, legal, and health systems. This can mean providing referrals, making phone calls, translating letters, or even going off-site to literally walk with people as they visit the courthouses, hospitals, or social service agencies in the Chicagoland area.Read more

Jeff Waggoner

Nassau, NY: The multi-billion dollar company Kinder Morgan wants to poison our kids with a massive compression station in our rural/residential community in Nassau, NYRead more

Meagan Beckermann

Bridgeton, MO: Here in Bridgeton, MO Republic Services owns a landfill complex which contains two landfills that lie directly adjacent to each other. The entire complex is called West Lake Landfill Complex.Read more

Richard D. Phalen

Kansas City, MO: 1.       Our political and religious leaders should follow the example of our Holy Father Pope Francis who recently wrote a major encyclical on climate change.  Just last week Bishop Soto of California stated that lawmakers should think about the legacy that we wish to leave to future generations; he stated that “…we are a pioneer state and we are innovators.Read more

Sr. Roberta White, B.V.M.

Glendale, CA: Sr. Pauline is from a country in Africa and all of us BVMs here have adopted her as a member of our Community, and her Community has adopted us.  She does work here in the U.S. to help her Community.Read more

Ann Kendrick

Apopka, FL: A small team of Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur has been working with the working poor people of Central Florida especially the immigrant and farmworker community. Our mission is to be a service learning community dedicated to the empowerment of Central Florida’s working poor community through education, advocacy and spiritual growth.Read more

Terry Edelmann

St. Louis, MO: As a lifelong St Louis resident I am always happy to learn about local community betterment. The Grove neighborhood in midtown St Louis is a case in point. It has struggled for many years with boarded up houses and businesses, an unacceptable crime rate, drugs easily available and an overall look of decay and neglect. Recently things have been looking up. New entertainment venues have emerged, and The Grove has become a popular nightspot. Earlier in the year the Washington University Medical Center Redevelopment Corp. began moving forward with plans for new housing in the community.Read more

Gail Grimes, SNDdeN

Apopka, FL: So often when people work in communities of people made poor by our systems, they end up working with a certain segment of the community.  So when a small team of Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur began working in a small farmworker, immigrant and working poor community in Central Florida in the early 1970’s, they made it their mission to work with people from many sectors of the community – African Americans, Latinos, Haitians, and Caucasians.  However, they also began cultivating relatRead more

Sr. Kathleen Quinn, PHJC

East Chicago, IN: I have the priveledge of ministering two days a week at Sojourner Truth House, Gary, IN.  The mission is to assist homeless and at risk women and their children.  I minister as an RN and see the needs of quality health care.  I have assisted many to apply for HIP 2: the Indiana plan vs. extending Medicaid in Indiana.  I petitioned early in the decision process to get Indana to extend Medicaid, but to no avail and then assisted in challenging our Republican Govenor Pence to come up with assistance to the many persons in Indiana that need health care.  Read more

Barbara Dopierala

North Providence, RI: Pope Francis in his latest encyclical – Laudato Si calls the culture of relativism a disorder “which drives one person to take advantage of another, to treat others as mere objects, imposing forced labor on them or enslaving them to pay their debts. The same kind of thinking leads to the sexual exploitation of children and abandonment of the elderly who no longer serve our interests (Laudato Si, 123)". Read more

Michele Morek

New York City, NY: I am the director of an NGO that works at the United Nations for a coalition of 19 congregations of women religious, with a presence of over 20,000 in over 82 countries of the world. We share stories from the grassroots with the UN, and we tell our 20,000 sisters out there how they can work with UN agencies to create systemic change.   Our special areas of advocacy are Women and Children, especially those living in poverty or who are trafficked, migrants / refugees, and the environment, especially water and climate change issues.Read more

Helen Gourlay, BVM

Milwaukee, WI: I bridge divides by visiting a young African-American man in prison. I’ve known him and his family since he was a child. I learn about his struggles, hopes, and dreams and about the spiritual journey he is on. I share with him and am a mentor for him as he hopes soon to be released. Also I am in a Pax Christi group at church. Particularly in the book Healing the Heart of Democracy by Parker Palmer we looked at ways Democrats and Republicans can better understand each other to heal our divides. Read more

Kate Novotny

Chicago, IL: I am a Loan Officer at Accion Chicago, a nonprofit that supports entrepreneurs in Illinois and Northwest Indiana from communities underserved by traditional financial institutions. With microloans and business coaching, our clients are able to build their businesses, strengthen their communities and create jobs. This bridges the divide that too often keeps small business owners from accessing capital that will grow their business and promote healthy economic activity in their communities.Read more

Sister Carolyn Capuano, HM

Canton, OH: Around the same time (2009) that our Diocese made the difficult decision to close an inner city parish in NE Canton, St. Paul's, we at Mercy Medical Center (Sisters of Charity Health System) heard the cry of the people for accessible health care. Read more

Mary McCauley, BVM

Dubuque, IA: A transformative moment in my life came on May 12, 2008 when I was serving as the pastoral administrator of St.Read more

Sister Carol Nolan, S.P.

Coachella, CA: Since 2002, some other Sisters and I have been ministering here in the eastern Coachella Valley in the interior desert of southern California. We focus on teaching English as a Second Language to immigrant farm workers living in the isolated areas near the Salton Sea.  Read more

Sr. MacCanon Brown (SFCC)

Milwaukee, WI: One way of creating a bridge of understanding is to organize a prayer pilgrimage.  We did this in Ferguson.ARTICLE: "Creating a living memorial for Michael Brown"  by Sr. MacCanon BrownThis was published in the August 16th issue of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Crossroads SectionThe new asphalt rectangle in the middle of the 2900 block of Canfield Drive, Ferguson, Mo., seemed like a scab formed over a deep wound. It was where the fallen body of Michael Brown lay for 4½ hours in 107-degree temperatures on Aug. 9, 2014.Read more

Sister Cecilia La Pietra

Sparkill, NY: I am the director of One to One Learning, an organization whose mission is to provide English classes and other supportive sevices to immigrants to empower them to reach their full potential and to lead meaningful lives in the communities in which they live and work.  Classes are held in small groups with a teacher and several students.  Read more

Mary Virginia Leach, OP

San Francisco, CA: This is a simple story about "building bridges" in a small way.  Hopefully, the young characters of this story will be the ones to transform politics in the future as they grow older.  At the inner city Catholic school where I am in ministry, we have recently rented unused parish space to an Islamic School.  Our children enjoy recess and lunch play time together.  They are making friends as children do so easily.  Read more

Sr. Theresa Harpin

San Luis Obispo, CA: The first woman I met in our County Jail four years ago had just said goodbye to her son, her only son who was sent off to another state for high school because she was just sentenced to 8 years in our jail. Dixie had been in and out of the system for the better part of her youth and adult life.  This time was different.  Read more

Margaret Phipps

Oklahoma City, OK: Working in a parish can be a challenge when you are charged with motivating folks to engage in all areas of justice and mercy. It is much easier to involve people in giving stuff to people who are poor, but extremely difficult to motivate them to work for change of the systems that trap the same groups in poverty.Thankfully, NETWORK was willing to come to the hinterlands of Oklahoma.Read more

Sr. Mary Peter Diaz, DC / Sr. Margaret Louise Brown, DC

Ankorage, AK: GSR: How did you get involved in this? Diaz: AFACT had someone speak at various congregations explaining the Medicaid expansion, but our former governor [Sean Parnell] was totally against it. With our new governor, it was part of his campaign, so we just needed to build support. We did various activities to inform the public. Most of what we did was education. We had a rally with over 400 people. For Alaska [with a population of 735,132], that’s a big deal.Read more

Sister Margaret McGuirk

Minneapolis, MN: In the midst of the rising controversy around the issue of immigration, we have been quietly reaching out to welcome the newly arriving immigrants  at Holy Rosary Church in Minneapolis.  We created an outreach program called Centro Guadalupano which offers English Classes, After School Enrichment,  Health and Wellness opportunities,  sewing classes and referrals for needed social services and immigration issues.  Centro Guadalupano serves over 1000 people each year.Read more

Mario

Washington, DC: My name is Mario, and I live in Washington DC. I grew up on food stamps.  When I was a kid, my father left my family and my mother was a single mother. She spent most of her time when my father was living with us as a housewife, so she didn’t have many marketable skills after my father left. My mother could only find work doing housekeeping at a big chain hotel. She made minimum wage and she had to pay our mortgage.Read more

Pat Dougherty

St. Louis, MO: On the door of my office is this sign: “We are connectors of dots and un-doers of knots”.  I wonder if bridging some of the many divides we encounter is really all about helping some to connect the dots and others to undo knots---inspired in part by “Our Lady—Undoer of Knots”. As a state legislator for 28 years, as Advocacy Director for Catholic Charities and as a parishioner,  my passion has been for public policies—ones that try to address the needs of the poor and vulnerable.Read more