What's Happening

July 12, 2024, Adrian, Michigan – The Adrian Dominican Sisters’ Adrian Resilient Community Initiative – approved in 2022 by the 2016-2022 General Council – is making a difference in the lives of youth who live in Adrian’s Historic East Side. 

The initiative, Growing up Resilient: The East Adrian Youth Resilience Collaborative, focuses on connecting participating youth and their families in East Adrian and the two Hispanic neighborhoods on the outskirts of Adrian with available community resources to expand literacy and family education and to connect the families with the resources they need. 

The plan includes developing Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) programs housed at the Boys and Girls Club of Lenawee and creating an Adrian Dominican Sisters Youth Learning Center and computer lab, to be housed in Ebeid Learning Center of ProMedica. This healthcare system encompasses southeastern Michigan and northern Ohio. 

Sisters, Associates, Co-workers, and the general public heard more about the initiative and its progress during a Lunch and Learn program offered June 12, 2024, at Weber Retreat and Conference Center.

“Our intent was not to duplicate efforts but to work collaboratively with other groups” to meet the needs of youth in the marginalized Historic East Side of Adrian, said Jennifer Hunter, Chief Operating Officer for the Adrian Dominican Sisters, and Co-chair of the Adrian Resilient Community Initiative Committee with Sister Sharon Weber, OP. 

The committee compared the population of the East Side with those of the rest of Lenawee County to determine the needs of the youth and families in that area and discovered several disparities. For example, 30% of East Adrian households are below the poverty line, compared to 11% in the rest of the community. 

Their discovery “formed our committee’s vision: a collaborative initiative among community members to provide youth in East Adrian with an opportunity for age-appropriate education and assistance in overcoming barriers,” Jennifer said.

Cody Waters, CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of Lenawee, spoke of the various programs offered by the club. Programs offer children the opportunity to develop in the areas of character and leadership, health and sports, academics, art, and career development.

In particular, Cody spoke of the organization’s summer camps to offer children a safe place while they experience art and enrichment in reading and mathematics. In the club’s peer-to-peer program, he said, older students help younger students improve their reading skills. 

Boys and Girls Club of Lenawee also relies on volunteers to help the children. “We want kids to enjoy what they’re doing and we want volunteers to enjoy it,” Cody said. “Relationship building is the key thing. Our team is trying to come up with different ways to get more mentors into the building.”  

Frank Nagel, Director of Community Impact for ProMedica, spoke of the healthcare system’s practice of screening patients for social factors that put them at a high risk. “When we have a patient at high risk for food insecurity, we can see at a ZIP Code level how these factors are taking place,” he said. People in Adrian’s ZIP Code, 49221, were in the “top five” of geographic areas with the need for greater resources, he said.

ProMedica first established an Ebeid Neighborhood Promise in Toledo “to address the gaps people have in attaining the resources they need,” Frank said. With the power of collaboration in Adrian, he said, “we can make sure that people are empowered to make lifestyle changes” that would improve their lives.

Lynne Punnett, Manager of Community Resilience for the resilience initiative in Adrian, said the Ebeid Center in Adrian has, since September 2023, been offering programs in areas such as financial literacy, home ownership, and parenting.  

This summer, the Ebeid Neighborhood Promise of Adrian is offering a six-week Literacy Pop-Up program in Adrian. For six mornings in June and July, children will be mentored as they focus on reading, writing, and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), Lynn said. Volunteer mentors include godparents, community members, and six Adrian Dominican Sisters.  

Partnership with the Adrian Dominican Sisters has “catalyzed this work … and brought us to a whole new level,” Frank said. “The power of this collaboration and partnership has been a humbling experience. I look forward to seeing the progress that is made because of our partnerships.”      

In late Spring, Boys and Girls Club of Lenawee publicly recognized the initiative by bestowing its Blue Door Award on the Adrian Dominican Sisters. “Through their generosity and steadfast support, the ‘Blue Door’ to our Club has been opened to so many local youth, and with the establishment of this new mentorship initiative, their impact on our Club and youth throughout the county will remain for decades and decades to come,” said Sara Herriman, Director of Development and Community Relations. 

“It was wonderful to be honored by and to partner with the Boys and Girls Club of Lenawee, an organization that has served the youth of our community so well for many years now,” Sister Sharon said.

“We were honored to be notified that the Adrian Dominican Sisters were being awarded the Blue Door Award by Boys and Girls Club of Lenawee,” Jennifer said.

•    Growing up Resilient is one of six initiatives developed by various regional groups of Adrian Dominican Sisters in response to the Congregation’s 2016 Resilient Communities Enactment. The other initiatives are:

•    Developing Resiliency in the Community of San José, Preravia Province, Dominican Republic. This initiative supports the construction of a technical school to offer training to local residents in fields needed by the local community.

•    Creating a More Resilient Immigration Community in McKinley Park (Illinois). The proposal is to establish a Comprehensive Adult Education Hub at Aquinas Literacy Center in Chicago’s McKinley Park neighborhood to offer GED instruction and literacy programs in the areas of computers, finances, the environment, and civics.

•    An investment to construct a second building at the Dominican School of Angeles City in the Mining barangay, Province of Pampanga, Philippines.

•    Affordable Housing as a Platform for Education Equity and Community Resilience. In partnership with Mercy Housing Northwest (MHNW), the initiative calls for extra in-house academic programs and social opportunities for children and their families in affordable MHNW housing projects to help them succeed academically.

•    The Empowering Resilient Women Initiative provides women in Flint, Michigan, who suffer from abuse with the resources they need to gain control of their lives, support for their families, and develop stronger communities.
 
 

 

February 12, 2024, Altamonte Springs, Florida – Later this spring, when 46 second-grade students receive their First Holy Communion at St. Mary Magdalen Church, they and their parents may be very grateful to the Sister who prepared them for this special event – Sister Rose Bernadette Hoeffner, OP.

Preparing children for First Communion is common in parishes and schools nationwide, but Sister Rose Bernadette’s situation is unique. She teaches the children every Tuesday morning from her room at the Dominican Life Center in Adrian, Michigan, via Zoom.

This is Sister Rose Bernadette’s third year teaching the First Communion class at St. Mary Magdalen through Zoom. While she was ministering at St. Jude Maronite Church in Orlando, Florida, one of the teachers she knew at St. Mary Magdalen asked her to teach the First Communion class via Zoom.

“The kids are so good,” Sister Rose Bernadette said. “I just love them because they’re so innocent. They take everything in. They don’t question anything unless it’s something they don’t understand.”

Sister Rose Bernadette Hoeffner, OP

Sister Rose Bernadette teaches the children from 10:15 a.m. to 10:55 a.m. every Tuesday, working with the children from two second-grade classes. “It takes a lot of planning,” she said. She prepares each lesson and submits it to the principal the Friday before the class. Usually, she said, she focuses on one of the saints connected to the Eucharist, on the commandments, and on confession. 

But she’s also flexible in her teaching. She recalled a student who asked, “If God made the world, who made God?” Sister Rose Bernadette answered, “God always was and always will be.” The following week, she focused on creation – and a picture of the hand of God and the hand of humanity. “I colored it, and the teacher made copies, and the children colored it later,” she said. “They really enjoyed it.”

Sister Rose Bernadette sees a special importance in preparing children for the sacraments. “The sacraments give us grace, and I want them to get the grace,” she said. In some cases, she said, children don’t return to religious education or Mass once they receive first Communion – sometimes not until it’s time to prepare for Confirmation. “The kids are missing out on so much.”

Sister Rose Bernadette feels at ease teaching through Zoom and by the greetings she gets from the children when they connect. While teaching religion at St. Jude Maronite Church, however, she once took the opportunity to visit the children and teach them in person. “The kids were so happy,” she said. “I was almost like a star because they got to see me.”

The fact that she teaches virtually poses a challenge for Sister Rose Bernadette. “The hardest part is when you have 46 kids in class, you can’t call them by name” because there are so many students, and she teaches them once a week. Still, she receives notes and cards from students she recently taught and from students she taught years ago.

The oldest of 12 children and a native of Florida, Sister Rose Bernadette was taught by the Adrian Dominican Sisters at St. Anastasia School in Fort Pierce, Florida. She knew her vocation by seventh grade, she said, and entered the Congregation almost 69 years ago, right out of high school at the age of 18.

When she entered, Mother Gerald Barry promised to send her back to Florida on mission. After a year and a half of teaching in Farmington, Michigan, she was sent to Melbourne, Florida, and has served in Florida ever since. 

For the most part, she has taught younger children. “When I entered, I didn’t know what class I liked [to teach],” she said. “In my first assignment, I taught little ones. They must have considered that I was a good primary teacher.” From that point on, Sister Rose Bernadette taught first- and second-grade children. “They can learn a lot from an adult at that age and follow through on that,” Sister Rose Bernadette said. “By the time they’re in fourth or fifth grade, they’re already influenced by other things.”

Sister Rose Bernadette cherishes her time on Zoom with the second graders at St. Mary Madalen – and the many students who have kept in touch with her over the years. But she is not finished as a teacher yet, she said. She hopes to return to Florida and resume teaching young children both in the classroom and by Zoom.

“I get several notes all the time from the kids, so I know that they appreciate what I’m doing,” Sister Rose Bernadette said. “That’s what makes me love teaching. God has still given me the strength to do it. I’ll know when God is telling me that’s enough, and it’s not enough yet.”

The combined class of 46 second-grade students at St. Mary Magdalen School listen via Zoom to one of Sister Rose Bernadette’s classes, preparing them for First Holy Communion. Photo Courtesy of St. Mary Magdalen School, Altamonte Springs, Florida.