BVM Sisters in the News
Amy Golm, BVM is featured on a billboard in Fond du Lac, Wis., as part of a marketing campaign for the Agnesian Cancer Center.
Amy has served as a chaplain in the spiritual care department of Agnesian for the past five years.
“The campaign highlights the interdisciplinary approach to cancer care which we employ at Agnesian,” Amy says. “I am featured solo on a billboard which identifies spiritual care as one of those disciplines.”
Agnesian HealthCare is a member of SSM Health.
Catherine Dunn, BVM, president emerita of Clarke University in Dubuque, Iowa, was spotlighted in a series leading up to the announcement of the Dubuque newspaper’s First Citizen Award winner for 2019.
Dunn won the award from the Telegraph Herald in 1986 for her leadership after a devastating Clarke fire in May 1984.
“Many folks questioned whether the college could recover and survive. They were the folks that did not know Mary Catherine Dunn,” the newspaper says.
Dunn announced plans to rebuild on the same day.
The award focused on her leadership in rebuilding the campus, but “her subsequent involvement and leadership in the community, region, and state brought her additional accolades,” the paper says.
She was the first woman to chair the Iowa Transportation Commission, and won recognition from civic and governmental groups.
Click to read more: First Citizen Award: 1986, Sister Catherine Dunn, BVM
The Dax Program for homeless students at DePaul University in Chicago recently received a BVM Ministry Partnership Grant and also is featured in an article in the current issue of SALT.
Patricia Bombard, BVM, helped coordinate a group of DePaul faculty, staff, and students to learn about the needs of housing insecure students beginning in 2015.
Two houses are now available for DePaul students, and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., visited in September to learn more about the issue.
“We are so pleased that the program is receiving national attention now, and expanding to other cities,” Pat says.
A Depaul USA project in Philadelphia was featured on the PBS NewsHour recently. The report shared students’ stories and highlighted how the program is one solution to this vexing issue.
Set to open in February 2020, a 24-room Dax House is planned for the former convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph in Philadelphia. This Dax House will address students’ immediate crises of homelessness by providing stable and safe housing.
The Dax Program provides students with various services that support a successful path toward the continuation and completion of their studies. These include: housing, case management, counseling referrals, transportation, food stipends, textbook assistance, and educational reimbursements.
The Peoria Journal Star named the Loyola University Chicago basketball team’s NCAA Tournament Final Four achievement one of the 10 sports stories of the decade for Illinois. And they didn’t neglect the team chaplain, Jean Dolores Schmidt, BVM.
“In 2018, Loyola somehow made a 98-year-old nun the face of college basketball for two weeks. The Ramblers, who hadn’t even had a winning record in their own conference for a decade, reached the NCAA tourney for the first time since 1985 and raced all the way to the Final Four as a No. 11 seed. They finished 32-6 and the nation adopted their team chaplain, Sister Jean. It took only 48 hours for a likeness of Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt to become the best seller in the history of the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum,” the Journal Star says.
The Chicago Sun-Times also mentioned Sister Jean in its nod to the Loyola team: “The Ramblers pulled off not one or two but four consecutive upsets to make it to the Final Four for the first time since 1963. And they did this all the while their beloved team chaplain, Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, who turned 100 in August, grew to the level of ‘international’ stardom.”