Serving in a new way: A conversation in Ellis, Kan.

The director of the Ellis Alliance had been thinking about a “community roundtable discussion” for some time.  But, says Dena Patee, she was reluctant to propose, let alone lead, such an event herself. In a city of just 2,000 residents, she knew it would be difficult to appear neutral. “There’s a tendency to think you’re taking sides, or promoting one idea or another,” Patee said.

Enter Cheryl Lyn Higgins, the coordinator of Neighborhood Initiatives and the leader of last Saturday’s “community conversation” in Ellis.

One of the many goals of Neighborhood Initiatives, which is a new office of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia, is to reach out to communities where sisters serve and offer whatever assistance is needed in bringing people together to talk about challenges and solutions.

Sister Doris Marie Flax has served as pastoral minister at St. Mary’s Church in Ellis since 1994, and introduced Higgins to Patee and several other community leaders. As a result, Higgins offered her services — free of charge — to organize the Saturday meeting and then walk the 20 or so participants through the process of really looking at their community.

“In a small community, it’s sometimes difficult to lay out the facts when you’re there with all your neighbors and people you’ve known all your life,” Higgins explained. “Somebody coming in from the outside can say things that someone inside the community cannot always say. But someone has to say, ‘Elected officials can’t do everything’ and ‘We have to be citizens in our community.’ ”

According to Patee, Higgins was exactly the person needed to start the conversation.

“It was so much nicer that Cheryl Lyn came out and did the facilitation,” she said. “She was so comfortable and calm; she was flawless in her presentation.”

And, she notes, everyone at the meeting knew that Higgins was just there to help.

Higgins’ assistance — and, in fact, the creation of Neighborhood Initiatives in 2010 — continue a tradition the Sisters of St. Joseph have lived out since their founding 128 years ago. In their early days in Kansas, the congregation founded schools and hospitals to educate young people and provide health care, services that were crucial in the communities where they lived and served.

As the need arose, they founded orphanages and nursing homes to provide care for children and elders who needed it.

“Those were all needs relevant to their times,” Higgins explained. “Today rural communities are concerned about sustainability — that’s what makes these community conversations relevant to this time and to the communities where sisters serve.”

The process began with small groups listing “What we like about Ellis,” and items like good schools and active organizations were included by almost every group.

Then came a harder question: What would make Ellis even better?

Participants came up with a list of 14 suggestions, ranging from developing more housing of all types to creating a business incubator and building a community center.

The final two questions were the hardest: What are the priorities and who will work toward them?

Ultimately, four topics made that list — housing, business development and a business incubator, a community center and cleanup of Big Creek — and participants volunteered to serve on a committee for each one.

“My dream is that everyone who signed up to volunteer will show up and take an active role,” Patee said with a laugh. “That may not happen, but this was very, very positive.”

The next step in the process, Higgins said, is to present the four goals, as well as other information from the meeting, to the Ellis Alliance Board of Directors and then to the Ellis City Commission. That should happen early in October.

Meanwhile, Higgins is looking at other cities where there are Sisters of St. Joseph with the hope that Neighborhood Initiatives can be of service there, too. The program is funded by the Sisters of St. Joseph so there is no cost to the cities that participate.

Motherhouse team walks to beat cancer

Sisters, staff, family and friends came together Saturday evening to begin the annual 12-hour Cloud County Relay for Life.

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The 22-member Nazareth Motherhouse team, led by captains Alfreda Maley and Sister Dorothy Marquez, joined scores of others from throughout Cloud County in the annual fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. This year’s event was held at Concordia city Park, beginning at 6 p.m. Saturday (Sept. 10). It concludes at 6 a.m. Sunday.

After the ceremonies that marked the start of the Relay, the walking itself began — with a lap through the park by cancer survivors. They were joined by their family and caregivers near the swimming pool and together released dozens of balloons into the balmy evening sky.

The Motherhouse team raised $4,597 this year through the sale of luminarias honoring cancer survivors and those who have died of the disease. Together, the half dozen or so teams that took part this year  raised $27,845. In 2010, the Concordia event raised $29,900.

The Motherhouse team also raised funds with their concession stand, selling hamburgers, hot dogs, chips and drinks.

Sisters on the team this year were Sisters Lucille Herman, Betty Suther, Marcia Allen, Slyvia Winterscheidt, Ramona Medina, Esther Pineda and Shirley Meier. Other team members were Katie Koerber, Cam Koerber, Jesica Collins, Kayla Ramsey, Cheryl Lyn Higgins, Dottie Vohs, Marcia Mick, Rita Collette, Mary Jane Gallagher, Rope Dorman, Michelle Gallagher, Tryston Jochems and Vikki Jochems. Greg and Jerry Gallagher and Burl Maley were also on hand to help with the cooking and set up.

 

Local groups gather for Volunteer Fair

A total of 15 local groups, organizations and agencies gathered today to explain what they do and how volunteers can help. And while only a small number of people stopped by the Concordia Volunteer Fair at the Nazareth Motherhouse to find out about becoming a volunteer, organizers were generally happy with the first-ever event.

• • • • •

The fair was from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and was hosted by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia. The idea for the event grew out of the Community Needs Forum, where representatives from numerous groups and organizations have talked about the continuing challenge of matching volunteers with their needs.

In addition to the displays, there were also free hot dogs, chips and beverages, and cookies made by the women at the Neighbor to Neighbor. Door prizes were donated by Nutter Mortuary. The winners of the door prizes were:

• Haley Campbell
• Carol McKenna
• Sreya Kemling
• Darlyn Kemling
• Mary Jane Hurley
• Dolores Landry
• Mary Ann Lagemann
• Nancy Nading

The organizations and agencies that took part were:

• Big Brothers Big Sisters of Cloud, Republic and Mitchell Counties
• Brown Grand Theatre
• CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates)
• Cloud County Health Center and the CCHC Auxiliary
• Cloud County Museum
• Concordia Community Garden of Hope
• Concordia Fire Department
• Concordia School District (USD 333)
• Manna House of Prayer
• National Orphan Train Complex & Museum
• Neighbor to Neighbor
• The North Central Kansas Chapter of the American Red Cross
• The North Central Kansas Regional Medical Reserve Corps
• POW Camp Concordia
• Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia

All the organizations continue to seek volunteers. If you’re interested in learning more, you can contact any of the groups or organizations. Or Sister Jean Rosemarynoski, who organized the Volunteer Fair, can help put you in touch with any of the groups. She can be reached at 785/243-2113, ext. 1225, or sisterjean@csjkansas.org

Ingenuity, experience & skill (& more than a little muscle)

Take a crew of men with decades of experience among them, throw in more than a little ingenuity and a keen eye on costs and then ask them to come up with a solution for the kind of problem you find only in buildings more than a century old. What you end up with is an elegant, if unglamorous, method of replacing more than 100 feet of 104-year-old steel pipe, buried in an underground tunnel accessible only from a scaffold in an equally old stone cellar.

The challenge facing the maintenance crew at the Nazareth Motherhouse in Concordia was daunting: They needed to replace the original steel pipe that runs from the below-ground room that was built in 1907 for coal-fired boilers to under the auditorium on the south side of the Motherhouse. The original boilers were replaced with natural gas boilers in the 1960s, and then those were replaced two much smaller but much higher efficiency models in 2003.

The remaining piece of the original system was the 10-inch pipe, and the crew had already cut out and replaced two sections to repair leaks. They had enough experience to know the century-old steel would continue to deteriorate; the time had come for a new 6-inch pipe.

In all likelihood, the old pipe was installed in a trench and then the tunnel to house it was built around it and covered with dirt and, eventually, asphalt for the back parking lot. The tunnel itself is roughly 5½ feet high at the south end, and narrowing to about 4 feet high once it reaches the Motherhouse.

So in 2011, the crew had to figure a way to get the old pipe out of the tunnel, then how to get the new 21-foot pipe sections — each weighing about 400 pounds — down a steep flight of stairs into the cellar, through a doorway and turned 90 degrees, then lifted about 12 feet to the tunnel opening and finally moved into the tunnel for assembly along the 100 feet to the Motherhouse.

This is where the ingenuity comes in.

Maintenance supervisor Renn Allsman said his crew — Jim Helton, Brad Snyder, Curtis Mansfield and Keith Sells — “brainstormed” various solutions that would be both efficient and safe.

The first solution was installing a track much like that used for barn doors on the entire length of the tunnel’s ceiling. That allowed Helton and Snyder to cut the old pipe into chunks about 4 feet long, then raise each section up with chains to connect to the track and slide it to the tunnel opening.

With the old pipe removed, the next solution required a little more muscle. With boards covering the concrete steps, a chain with a hook on the end was threaded through each section of the new pipe and attached to an electric winch. The pipe was then lowered slowly down the wooden “slide” with the winch controlling its speed and men keeping it headed straight down.

At the bottom of the stairs, the front end was lifted on to a dolly to move it through the doorway and into the main room of the cellar. Once there, the hook and chain were pulled free and a strap placed around the center of the pipe so it could be lifted with an engine hoist and turned 90 degrees to stack on the floor.

Once all the pipe sections were in the cellar, the hoist lifted each one enough that it could be tipped up to the opening, some 12 feet off the floor, and slid into tunnel. The track then allowed Helton and Snyder to lift each section again and move it down the length of the tunnel to where it was bolted to the next section.

While Helton and Snyder did all the work in the tunnel, it took the ingenuity — and muscle — of the entire crew, plus some help from grounds staff employee Zach Balthazor, to get the pipe in place.

The crew worked on the project as time was available through most of July and August.

“This is not the kind of job that most maintenance crews would tackle,” said Motherhouse facilities administrator Greg Gallagher, “but our guys knew they could figure out a way to do it.”

Employees, job-seekers get a chance to be the B.E.S.T.

The first batch of Concordia’s B.E.S.T. employees will complete their two-day training program Friday.

The “Basic Employability Skills Training” — or B.E.S.T. — program was offered free of charge at Neighbor to Neighbor, and sponsored by Neighborhood Initiatives Inc., a new office of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia. Eight women and one man enrolled in the series of eight classes that cover everything from punctuality and dependability to customer service and workplace ethics. Participants receive a certificate of completion for each class.

The sisters who staff Neighbor to Neighbor provided child care and lunch — both at no charge — to the B.E.S.T. participants.

“This is about allowing your employees to get better, and about finding people who have the basic skills you need,” said Cheryl Lyn Higgins, coordinator for Neighborhood Initiatives. Higgins was instrumental in creating B.E.S.T. when she was president and CEO of the Junction City Area Chamber of Commerce.

The program is now offered statewide by the Kansas Department of Commerce through Kansas Works, but Higgins was able to arrange to offer it free in Concordia because one of the Sisters of St. Joseph was trained to teach it when she worked for the Commerce Department. Sister Jan McCormick of Chapman, Kan., is leading the sessions at Neighbor to Neighbor today and Friday.

Higgins hosted a lunch for employers in May to tell them about the B.E.S.T. program and gauge local interest. Several employers at that lunch said that the completion certificates could be a valuable tool in screening potential workers, while employees and job-seekers alike could benefit from the basic skills offered.

Higgins and McCormick hope to schedule another B.E.S.T. session in the near future. Interested employers or job-seekers can contact Higgins for information at 243-2113, ext. 1215, or at clhiggins@csjkansas.org.

‘Every quilt tells a story’

IF THE STORY OF THE QUILT fit together as beautifully as the quilt itself, it would make for a fascinating history. The good news is that the hand-sewn fabric squares — believed to be at least 100 years old — are in the process of becoming a priceless family heirloom. The bad news is that many pieces of the story behind those quilt blocks are still missing.

The quilt top made from those blocks will be on display at the Nazareth Motherhouse during the KS 150 QuiltFest Oct. 7 and 8. And Vickie Hall will probably also be on hand to explain the significance of the blocks to her family in the Scandia and Norway areas north of Concordia. (Details about the QuiltFest are included at the end of this story, or you can CLICK HERE to go to the KS 150 QuiltFest website.)

This is the story of Hall’s family and the quilt blocks — or, at least, the pieces of the story that Hall has been able to track down.

 

HALL’S GREAT-GRANDPARENTS WERE Claes Henrik Herrman and Hilda Amelia Granstedt; they had emigrated separately from Sweden, and met and married in 1873 after settling in the Scandia area.

Claes — often referred to as C.H. or Charles — and Hilda reared five daughters and one son (another son died in infancy), according to “Kansas History for Kansans.” The eldest was Helga, born in 1876; then Victor Henry, born 1878; Hilda Amelia (and known as Millie), born 1880; Ellen Linnea, born 1883; Hilma Louise, born 1889; and Alice, born about 1894.

Claes, who had trained as a blacksmith in his native Sweden, prospered as a farmer and stockman in the Scandia and Norway areas of north-central Kansas. The family eventually owned 1,000 acres of land on which they produced corn, wheat, and alfalfa and had a herd of cattle.

By 1900, Claes and Hilda needed more space for their growing family, so they built what is today one of the landmark homes in the area: Its 14 rooms and three stories (a full basement, two stories and the attic — which will play a key role later in the story of the quilt) measured 40-by-40 feet and was built of native dressed limestone. (Located about 7 miles south of Scandia, today the house is owned and operated by Jerry and Marilyn Sorenson as the Herrman House Bed and Breakfast.)

The Herrman children, meanwhile, were enjoying the lifestyle their parents’ prosperity made possible.

“It was obvious the girls were quite privileged as they went off to college and enjoyed travel, clubs, hobbies and formal training in the fine arts,” says Vickie Hall, who is the great-granddaughter of Claes and Hilda and the great-niece of the five Herrman daughters.

 

AT JUST ABOUT THE SAME TIME that the Herrman family was beginning to prosper north of Concordia, a small group of Catholic sisters arrived in Kansas from Rochester, N.Y. The year was 1883 and the group, led by Sister Stanislaus Leary, was headed to Arizona Territory. But when they arrived in Leavenworth, the bishop asked them to stay. So they went to Newton, Kan., where they remained for a year and then came north, where in 1884 they founded the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia, Kan.

One of their first undertakings in Concordia was to build a Motherhouse, or convent, for their new congregation, and start a school for girls from throughout the area. The original Nazareth Convent and Academy was built at Fifth and Olive streets, and today houses Manna House of Prayer.

The Sisters almost immediately began offering instruction in “the practical education of young ladies,” as described in a brochure from around 1900. “The system of instruction pursued in this Academy is of a most useful and comprehensive character. It is intended to train the heart as well as the mind — to form women who will not only grace society with their accomplishments, but honor and edify it with their virtues…”

The Academy and the new congregation of Sisters of St. Joseph were so successful, in attracting both students of all faiths and Catholic women who wanted to join the order, that they soon outgrew the original building. In 1902 work began on the five-story red brick-and-stone building on the south edge of Concordia; in just 13 months, construction was completed and the Nazareth Convent and Academy moved into its new home.

At some point — perhaps as early as 1897 — Helga Herrman, who would have been 21 then, arrived to take classes in painting and music at Nazareth Academy. According to Vickie Hill, Helga’s younger sister Hilma was an accomplished pianist who took music classes at Nazareth Academy; the family has a program for a music recital at the Academy listing Hilma as a participant.

A nephew of Helga and Hilma, Eugene Herrman, now 86, says he’s always heard that Hilma also took classes in “fancywork” at the Academy.

“Fancywork,” at the turn of the century, was a term that included all kinds of ornamental needlecrafts, such as embroidery, crochet and quilting.

The student records from the Academy are sketchy at best, according to the congregation’s archivist, Sister Bernadine Pachta, so there is no confirmation of when the Herrman girls attended.

The Academy was not the end of the Herrman girls’ education, however.

Hilda Amelia and Ellen both attended Hardin College in Mexico, Mo., while Hilma and Alice both attended the University of Kansas. Hilma studied music there, while Alice studied drama and the arts. Eldest sister Helga apparently went to Lawrence with the two younger sisters to cook and keep house for them.

 

IN THEIR BIG HOME SOUTH of Scandia, meanwhile, their mother and father had no need to throw anything away. With space to spare, the attic over the decades became the storage area for virtually everything the family no longer needed.

Following college, three of the daughters — Amelia, Ellen and Hilma — continued to live there, occupying their time with household chores, painting, sewing and quilting. Even their unfinished projects ended up stored in the huge attic.

The family patriarch, Claes, died in 1928; his wife Hilda lived on in the grand family home until her death in 1937.  Their three daughters remained there, and in 1953 the couple’s only surviving son, Victor, moved his wife Olena into the home to care for Ellen and Hilma.

Eventually Claes and Hilda’s grandson, Eugene Herrman, would inherit the home and live there with his family until 1997 when they decided to “downsize” and move to the town of Norway.

For the first time in almost 100 years, family members started going through everything that had been stored in the attic through three generations.

“My mom and my sister found a piece of thin muslin, folded over like an envelope,” recalls Vickie Hall. Inside was a neat stack of quilt blocks, held together with a simple straight pin and a note that read, “Made by the aunts.”

“They eventually showed them to me, and I just lit up,” Hall says with a laugh. “They were 20 9-by-11-inch quilt blocks, and there was not a spot on them. All those years and not a bit of rust from the pin or mildew; they were perfect. And the tiny stitching… We can only imagine the hours spent working on the blocks.  I wonder if they were done over the winter months or for a special occasion.”

 

THE PATTERN FOR THE QUILT blocks, according to Hall’s family lore, came from the Kansas City Star newspaper, which began publishing weekly patterns in 1926.

That was four years after Nazareth Academy ceased to exist in Concordia; the school had become part of Marymount College when the Sisters of St. Joseph opened it in Salina in 1922.

So Hall knows that  “the aunts” — Helga and Hilma — did not stitch the blocks while they were attending Nazareth Academy. But she clearly believes that’s where they perfected their “fancywork” skills and learned other artistry.

“We have a lot of gorgeous painted dishes, pyrography pieces and beautiful fancywork that lead us to believe the stories about the classes they took at Nazareth Academy to be fact,” says Hall, who now lives on a farm just north of Scandia with her husband Gerold.

And now, she also has a completed quilt top.

With advice from her friend and experienced quilter Sharon Wolters, Hall has created an 81-inch square quilt that she “assembled in a way that might have been used back in the 1920s or ’30s.

“It’s amazing that the colors are still bright and well preserved after 100-plus years of storage in the attic.”

And while she had hoped to be able to confirm more of the details about the quilt blocks and her great-aunts’ connection to Nazareth Academy, Hall is satisfied with the history she has uncovered.

“The quilt blocks, which I will always treasure, have been such a source of enjoyment as our family has reminisced once again about  ‘the talented Herrman sisters,’ ” she says. “We have begun to talk about our family history again and share it with our grandchildren.”

• • • • • •

QuiltFest celebrates Kansas’ 150th birthday

Quilts from across Kansas and across time will be on display across Concordia at the KS 150 QuiltFest Oct. 7 and 8.

The first-ever event includes quilt displays, quilting demonstrations, a vendors’ hall and a dinner and quilt auction, all to benefit Neighbor to Neighbor, the women’s center in downtown Concordia.

Organizers hope to have up to 150 quilts as part of the celebration of the 150^th anniversary of Kansas’ statehood.

The two main exhibit sites will be:

• Nazareth Motherhouse at 13^th and Washington streets. Displays there will be open from 1 to 5 p.m. Friday and from 9 to 11:30 a.m. and 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday. Tours of the landmark 1902 building, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, will also be available during those times.

• Living Hope Foursquare Church, 129 W. Sixth St. Displays there will be open from 1 to 5 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.

The Cloud County Museum, 634 Broadway, will also have its collection of vintage quilts on display.

Throughout the two-day event, there will also be quilting demonstrations and vendors at Living Hope Foursquare Church, plus a “Thrift Shop” featuring quilting fabric, notions, patterns and books at the Cloud County Convention and Tourism office, 130 E. Sixth St.

On Friday evening beginning at 7 there’s a special “quilters’ social” and at the Concordia Lutheran Church, 325 E. Eighth St.

Admission for all the displays and other daytime events both Friday and Saturday is $5, with children younger than 12 admitted free with an adult. Each admission includes one ticket to the Saturday evening drawing for a quilt. Additional tickets for the quilt drawings will also be for sale, for $2 each or five for $5. Admission and drawing tickets will be available at both the Motherhouse and Living Hope Church.

The QuiltFest’s featured event will be a catered dinner and quilt auction Saturday evening at the parish hall of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church. Tickets to the dinner are $20 and must be reserved by Sept. 24. Dinner tickets are available at the Motherhouse and the Convention and Tourism office, or by calling 785/243-4303.

Those interested in attending the auction but not the dinner will be admitted to the parish hall beginning at 7:30 p.m., with the auction scheduled to begin about 7:45.

Organizers hope to have up to 20 quilts for the auction, and donors are being asked to give at least a portion of the proceeds to Neighbor to Neighbor.

The center opened in May 2010 at 103 E. Sixth St. and is operated by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia for women and women with young children. Its staff is made up of Sisters Pat McLennon, Jean Befort and Ramona Medina, along with a growing cadre of volunteers.

From Monday through Friday, the sisters and volunteers offer classes and services that range from one-on-one tutoring for GED exams and book studies to providing a place to do laundry or take showers and classes in sewing, baking, lacemaking and household budgeting. Individual counseling services are also available as needed, as is help in navigating the social services maze. And, for some moms, the center has become a place to go with their young children, to give the kids a chance to play and the women a chance to befriend other moms.

There is never any cost to the women taking part; all the programs are offered free, with funding coming from the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia, a handful of grants and individual donations. The QuiltFest marks the first time proceeds from an event will benefit the center.

Sponsors of the KS 150 QuiltFest include the Knot-Tea Ladies Quilt Guild of Glasco, Kan., Cloud County Convention and Tourism, Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia, Stained Glass Stitchers of Concordia  and Living Hope Foursquare Church.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Old friend visits for a double celebration

The golden  jubilee celebration was a couple of months late in coming, and the birthday party was a week early. But old friends don’t quibble about exact dates.

• • • • • • • •

So on Friday (Aug. 26), the Sisters of St. Joseph invited Bishop Emeritus George Fitzsimons to the Motherhouse in Concordia, to honor him for his 50^th anniversary as an ordained priest and to celebrate his upcoming 83^rd birthday. The Sisters also wanted to thank the man who led the Salina Diocese as bishop for 20 years for always being a friend to the congregation.

Speaking in reference to the Gospel from that morning’s liturgy, the story of the Good Shepherd, Sister Marcia Allen, president of the congregation, said that although the Sisters “were not always docile, you were always patient, compassionate when we were grieving and always kind.”

Bishop Fitzsimons led the diocese from 1984 until his retirement in 2004, when he returned to a parish ministry in Ogden, Kan. But when Bishop Paul Coakley was appointed archbishop of Oklahoma City this past February, Bishop Fitzsimons was pressed back into service across the diocese.

He celebrated Mass with the Sisters before joining them for dinner. In addition to a stack of greeting cards that was several inches thick, the Sisters presented him with a birthday bottle of Baileys Irish Cream. Bishop Fitzsimons thanked the gathered Sisters for the gift, the cards and all their prayers. “It’s always good to be among old friends,” he said.

‘Working lunch’ focuses on events & work to be done

At least a dozen local organizations and agencies will take part in Concordia’s first-ever Volunteer Fair, participants at Wednesday’s “working lunch” at the Nazareth Motherhouse learned.

And while plans for that event — designed to bring together groups that need volunteers and local residents willing to help — are being finalized, other new community events are being launched.

• • • • • • •

Nearly 30 people attended the lunch, which was the 15th gathering in a process that started in the fall of 2008 and hosted by the Sisters of St. Joseph. In addition to identifying what participants see as the greatest needs in the community, the meetings have established smaller groups to seek solutions.

On Wednesday, a number of committees updated the larger group on upcoming events:

• Neighbor to Neighbor is hosting an open house this evening, from 5 to 7 p.m., to show off the just-completed renovation project that has doubled the space of the women’s center in downtown Concordia. The public is invited to stop by.

• A free showing of the 2004 movie “Hotel Rwanda” is set for Wednesday, Sept. 7, at the Cook Theater on the Cloud County Community College campus. Co-sponsored by the college and the Concordia year of Peace Committee, the 7 p.m. movie will be followed by a discussion led by Sue Sutton and Brenton Phillips.

• The Concordia Volunteer Fair is set for Saturday, Sept. 10, at the Motherhouse. Organizations and agencies, ranging from the Concordia Fire Department to the Brown Grand Theatre, will have displays, so local residents can find out more about how they can volunteer. Other groups that expect to have displays are Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Concordia POW Camp Association, the Salina chapter of the American Red Cross, the North Central Kansas Regional Medical Rescue Corps, Cloud County Museum, the National Orphan Train Museum, the Concordia School District, the city of Concordia, Manna House of Prayer and Neighbor to Neighbor.

• On Sunday, Sept. 18, the Motherhouse will host a Peace Fair, sponsored by the Justice and Peace Center of the Sisters of St. Joseph, the Concordia Year of Peace Committee and Pax Christi of Salina. That even commemorates the International Day of Peace and will offer a wide array of free activities for adults and children.

• The next presentation in the 2011 Concordia Speakers Series will be Monday, Sept. 26. Concordia City Manager Larry Uri will discuss “Building Community” in his talk, which begins at 7 p.m. in the Motherhouse Auditorium. All the presentations in the Speakers Series are open to the public without charge.

Also during Wednesday’s lunch, Year of Peace committee member Patrick Sieben reported on the National Night Out events in Concordia Aug. 2.

Sieben said “probably hundreds of people participated” in more than 20 neighborhood parties across the city as a part of the nationwide event, which was sponsored locally by the Year of Peace Committee and the Concordia Police Department. “This was a good, fun thing,” Sieben said, “and we’re going to do it again next year.” The national event is always held the first Tuesday in August.

New discussion that came up Wednesday included an idea to help local nonprofit organizations come together to raise funds.

Holly Brown, the former director of Big Brothers Big Sisters who has just started work in the Sisters of St. Joseph Development Office, asked those at the lunch meeting whether they would be interested in something like a “Christmas Tree Lane,” in which local organizations could decorate trees that then would be used as fundraisers. The event could be held in conjunction with the annual Christmas Open House at the Motherhouse, she said.

Brown is leading a committee to consider the idea.

Sister Marcia Allen, president of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia, also asked the group if human trafficking and its connection to immigration were topics of concern. “There have been recent news reports of trafficking in the Wichita area, and I don’t know how much people here know about it, and think it’s an issue here,” she said.

Allen along with several other sisters recently attended a national conference held in St. Louis where human trafficking was a main topic on the agenda.

After more discussion, most of the participants said they need more information about trafficking and its impact locally.

The final working lunch for 2011 is planned for Nov. 16, with the quarterly meetings scheduled through the first half of 2012. Everyone is invited to join the process; you do not have to a have attended an earlier lunch or other meeting to take part now. If you’d like to be added to the list to receive an email reminder of the next lunch, contact Sister Jean Rosemarynoski at sisterjean@csjkansas.org.

 

 

 

 

Neighbor to Neighbor shows off doubled space

The community is invited to an open house Thursday, Aug. 18, to show off a project that was only the haziest of dreams two and a half years ago.

Neighbor to Neighbor, the center for women in downtown Concordia, will offer tours and information from 5 to 7 p.m., to introduce the community to its newly expanded and renovated space at 103 E. Sixth St.

The center opened in May 2010 on the first floor of the 1888 building, and with the completion of the second-floor renovation now has double the space.

The Sisters of St. Joseph purchased the two-story brick building in April 2009, and facilities manager Greg Gallagher knew that the project would be more resurrection than renovation — particularly on the second floor, which had not been used for anything other than storage for decades.

So in the spring and summer of 2009, when the first floor was cleaned out and the lath and plaster removed from the walls, that work was done on the second floor, too. The only other work upstairs was to remove the boards that had filled the three large windows facing Sixth Street and replace them with new vinyl windows.

Then the work upstairs stopped.

Downstairs, on the main floor, Nazareth Motherhouse employees completely refinished the 123-year-old structure, adding new plumbing, lighting, a heating and cooling system, interior walls, a complete kitchen, bathroom facilities, a laundry room, flooring and all the finishings.

When Neighbor to Neighbor opened, its 2,000 square feet seemed to offer ample space for the women and their young children who would be welcomed there by Sisters Jean Befort, Pat McLennon and Ramona Medina, the Sisters of St. Joseph who conceived of the center and now staff it every day.

From Monday through Friday, the sisters and volunteers offer classes and services that range from one-on-one tutoring for GED exams and book studies to providing a place to do laundry or take showers and classes in sewing, baking, lacemaking and household budgeting. Individual counseling services are also available as needed, as is help in navigating the social services maze. And, for some moms, the center has become a place to go with their young children, to give the kids a chance to play and the women a chance to befriend other moms.

There is never any cost to the women taking part; all the programs are offered free, with funding coming from the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia, a handful of grants and individual donations.

“This is about one neighbor helping another,” as Sister Ramona explains it.

And the neighbors throughout Cloud County and beyond have responded — the center is often packed throughout the day.

So Gallagher and the sisters last fall began working on a plan to bring the 2,057 square feet of space upstairs back to life, in much the same way as was done downstairs. Work began in December 2010, with  Motherhouse employees again doing the bulk of the work. Employees working on the project include Gene Gangstrom, Curtis Mansfield, Jim Helton, T.J. Hayne, Brad Snyder, Bob Kearn and Renn Allsman.

The center remained open during the upstairs construction. The sounds of work on the second level sometimes competeed with conversation on the main floor, but not enough to deter women from continuing to come to Neighbor to Neighbor.

The open and airy second floor now includes an art room, a private counseling or small meeting room, two more bathrooms, lots of storage space and a kitchenette that looks out over a large and well-stocked play area for children.

A special fund-raising drive to pay for the second-floor expansion began at the same time as the renovation work. Donors could support the project with a gift of $24.33 per foot — for however many feet they wanted — to help cover the project’s costs. So far, donations have covered about 1,750 square feet, with about 300 left to go.

If you’d like to make a donation to help with the renovation cost or to support Neighbor to Neighbor, you may give a gift through a secure server using Pay Pal. Just click the DONATE button below.

Sisters bid farewell to Motherhouse chaplain

Sisters at the Motherhouse and from throughout Concordia and Salina spent an hour Thursday afternoon thanking Father Jack Schlaf for his five years of service as their chaplain.

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In particular, they cited his pastoral approach to the sisters, the depth and meaningfulness of his homilies, and his compassion and care for all the women of the congregation. Sisters also noted his service as a “fill-in” priest throughout the Concordia and Belleville areas.

And they joked with the man who in his five years at the Motherhouse became more than just a chaplain. “I’m ready to call you ‘Brother Father Jack Schlaf’ and welcome you as a member of our community,” said Sister Lucienne Savoy, drawing laughter and applause from the gathered sisters.

Father Schlaf’s last day as chaplain will be Aug. 15, and in retirement he plans to move to Colorado Spring, Colo. On Aug. 16, Father Jim Hoover, who has most recently been the parish priest in Wilson, Kan., will take over as Motherhouse chaplain.

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