Loretto High School Alumnae Association Grants Support Loretto Values, Mission

Annually, the board of the Loretto High School Alumnae Association, following consultation with the members at the business meeting, awards small grants of up to $500 to sisters and co-members of Loretto to support projects in which they are involved in educational work or in activities that promote compassion, mercy, justice and peace. The alums, of whom I am one, consider that sharing the association’s resources helps to express our gratitude to the many Sisters of Loretto who were our teachers. The values instilled in us by the teaching and example of these women remain powerful influences.

This year, the awards will help support the following members and their projects:

• Buffy Boesen for her work with Annunciation House in immigrant resettlement through Nazareth Hall.

• Karen Cassidy for the compassionate care which she and volunteers provide for otherwise homeless individuals at their end of life.

• Mary Ann Gleason for her work in Uganda, particularly with children with HIV/AIDS and various cancers.

• Mary Margaret Murphy for her work with the residents of Villa Maria in El Paso.

• Maureen O’Connell in support of an effort to recognize through the development of a museum the perils experienced by women working in the coal mines and by male convicts required to do so in Tennessee.
• Anthony Mary Sartorius and those at Loretto Motherhouse who are establishing a “green burial” space for Community members who choose this environmentally friendly manner of burial.

• Barbara Wander for her work with the Little Sisters in Haiti to provide meals, housing and scholarships for children and young adults.

Loretto High School (Broadway) closed in 1973 after nearly 75 years. Carol Dunphy, principal at the time, facilitated the purchase of the property by the bishop and community of Christ Temple Apostolic Church, a missionary church in the Baptist tradition. That community continues to flourish to this day. The alumnae association was created nine years ago by a small group of classmates from the mid-1960s. Today, there remain approximately 1,000 alums in the association.