What do 27 air mattresses, 19 young adults, 11 Sisters/Daughters of Charity, five and one-half bathrooms, 15 lbs of mashed potatoes, one parish food bank and clothing closet and three families moving back home have in common?
Tags: Homelessness, House of Charity, Hunger, New Orleans, Sisters of Charity Federation
This report reminds me of the first days of the Sisters in Virginia City in 1864. But there were only 3 of them back then, and quickly, over the next few months they acquired orphans due to mining cave-ins. They all lived and worked and ate and slept in one big room until a school was built.
I read their letters from back then. They laughed a lot over stuff that would have scared me–like falling down the backsteps in the Winter, followed by a baby landing square in the lap of one the girls who had fallen in a mighty pile of snow.
Collaboration was woven into their being even then because necessity called for it. gh