What's Happening

March 5, 2025, Sección San José, Bani, Dominican Republic – A sense of celebration permeated Sección San José, Bani, a small village in the Dominican Republic, as 300 people gathered to enjoy speakers, a marching band, a brigade of batons and flags, and refreshments on February 15, 2025. Sisters Basilia De la Cruz, OP, Nery "Luchy" Sori, OP, and Eneida Santiago, OP, were in attendance for this joyful inauguration of the Centro de Capacitación Téchnica Integral Hermanas Dominicas de Adrian, a technical and comprehensive training center that could make a difference in the lives of many of the residents throughout the province.
  
The event brought the vision and nine years of work and planning of the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ Resilient Community Committee for the Dominican Republic closer to reality.

“I do not think it is an exaggeration when I say that this Centro represents all that is good in our world – and what our world so urgently needs today,” said Sister Elise D. García, OP, Prioress of the Adrian Dominican Sisters, during her talk at the inauguration ceremony. She addressed the community in Spanish.

Sister Elise said the Centro is the “concrete result” of a dream and a vision “to provide comprehensive technical training that will impact not only the lives of your families but the larger world beyond.” She said it is also the “concrete result” of a “mission to work together for the common good of the community” and of a “commitment to seed hope for a brighter future.” Read Sister Elise’s comments in Spanish and in English.

The training center is the centerpiece of the resilient communities plan, Developing Resiliency in the Community of San José, the Dominican Republic. This and five other regional resilient communities initiatives were created in response to the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ Enactment on Resilient Communities, approved during the Congregation’s 2016 General Chapter.

Partners with the Adrian Dominican Sisters in developing the technical training center include the Dominican Republic’s Institute for Professional Technical Training (INFOTEP), which will offer internationally recognized certification to graduates of the technical center, and Fe y Alegría, a federation of local organizations that provide education in poor areas in 19 nations, particularly in Latin America. Centro Espíritu Santo Fe y Alegría is a school in Sección San José founded 30 years ago by members of the local community and Adrian Dominican Sisters Maurine Barzantni, OP, and Renee Richie, OP. The school is part of that federation, which also works with technical and vocational schools.

The training center will offer technical and vocational training to the people in the region offering certification needed for well-paying jobs. It will offer tuition-free training in areas such as electrical work, plumbing, recycling, welding, hospitality, cooking, and jewelry-making. Graduates will earn certification from INFOTEP.   

Along with hands-on workshops, the technical center includes a community garden and seven classrooms, four of them named in memory of Adrian Dominican Sisters who ministered in Sección San José: Sisters Maurine and Renee, along with Sisters Margaret Lane, OP, and Sharon McGuire, OP, who often ministered in healthcare, said Sister Luchy, who ministers at Centro Espíritu Santo. 
 
“We hope [the Center] will be ready to open in two months or so,” said Sister Eneida, who also ministers at Centro Espíritu Santo with Sister Luchy and Sister Basilia, the principal. She said the technical center is waiting to be connected to electricity to allow for the completion of the workshops. “When everything is ready, [INFOTEP] will give us the approval. Then we’ll open the school,” Sister Eneida said. 

The technical center “is for every town around our little town” and for people at all levels of education, Sister Luchy said. Programs are available to working adults who need the training and certification to earn higher wages; adults who have completed high school and those who have not; and high school students who seek extra training on weekends and in evenings. 

The new center is also causing excitement among Adrian Dominican Sisters and Associates who came to the Dominican Republic to attend the inauguration. Sister Carol Gross, OP, who ministered in the Dominican Republic for more than 30 years, said she was pleased to return and to see the growth of Centro Espíritu Santo. Four of the school’s original teachers attended the dedication of the technical center, she said. 

Sister Carol described the technical center as a “dream come true” for Sister Maurine. “Maurine, right from the very, very beginning, was concerned about vocational education and helping people to get those skills that they could use to be productive members of society,” she said. “It was special for me to think that that dream was right there from the beginning.”  

Lloyd Van Bylevelt, an Adrian Dominican Associate and member of the Resilient Community Committee that planned the technical center, recalled the committee’s hard work. “Basically, we had a lot of meetings, probably once or twice monthly for close to a year, figuring out the ideas and getting some resiliency into the plans,” he said. 

Lloyd was impressed by the celebratory nature of the dedication – and by the technical center itself. “To see it become real was very fulfilling,” he said. He anticipates that it will be a “major contributor” to the lives of the local community members and will augment the benefits that Centro Espíritu Santo has brought to the community over the years. 

Dee Joyner, an Adrian Dominican Associate and former Director of Resilient Communities, also attended the ceremony and was pleased by the construction and dedication of the technical center. “Just to see the project come together like that and the end result was a real highlight for me,” she said. “It was the vision the Sisters had when we first started working with them to develop the plan.”

Dee was also pleased with the local community. “The level of engagement of the community in the project was exactly what we were hoping for,” particularly the commitment of the local community to bring the project forward and make it sustainable – so that it can be continued in years to come. “It’s so apparent that they’re invested in the project,” she said.

As Director of Resilient Communities, Dee oversaw the committees whose initiatives were approved by the Adrian Dominican Sisters General Council. These included five initiatives in addition to the project in the Dominican Republic.

•    McKinley Park Resilient Community Initiative: Creating a More Resilient Immigrant Community, Chicago.
•    Growing Up Resilient: The East Adrian Youth Resilience Collaborative, Adrian.
•    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, Seattle.
•    The Empowering Resilient Women Initiative, Flint, Michigan. 

View a highlight reel of the inauguration below, in Spanish:

Caption for feature photo at top: Sister Elise D. García, OP, Prioress of the Adrian Dominican Sisters, cuts the ribbon during the inauguration of the Centro de Capacitación Técnica Integral Hermanas Dominicas de Adrian with Father José R. López, SJ, Director of Fe y Alegría Dominicana. Among the community members are representatives of the Adrian Dominican Congregation: Associate Dee Joyner, behind Sister Elise; and from the left of Sister Elise, Sisters Basilia De la Cruz, OP, and Eneida Santiago, OP; Associate Lloyd Van Bylevelt; and Sister Nery (Luchy) Sori, OP.    

By Sister Judy Byron, OP, Portfolio Advisory Board Member and 
Maxwell Homans, Shareholder Advocacy Associate for Mercy Investments

February 18, 2025, Adrian, Michigan – Beginning in 2024, several prominent companies announced that they are ending or modifying their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs aimed at hiring and supporting a more diverse workforce and supplier base. These announcements followed recent legal decisions regarding affirmative action programs, anti-DEI campaign rhetoric in the recent election cycle, and a flurry of anti-DEI shareholder proposals at companies in recent proxy seasons. 

Ford Motor Company was among the first to announce changes in its DEI programs, citing an “external and legal environment related to political and social issues [that] continues to evolve.” The Portfolio Advisory Board joined other investors in filing a shareholder proposal requesting that the company disclose analysis that the company undertook before making changes to its DEI policies and practices.
 
Ford’s announced changes included no longer participating in the Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) survey on corporate practices related to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) employees; not linking compensation to diversity goals; and changing the focus of employee resource groups. 

In a subsequent meeting with Ford, the company assured investors that its commitment to diversity and inclusion is unwavering. The company said it has not put out a public clarification of its position because it wants to avoid feeding the media narrative grouping it with DEI rollbacks, but it immediately reached out to its largest investors to inform them of its continued commitment to DEI. 

Speaking with Ford to hear firsthand why the changes were made and how it plans to continue fostering a working environment based on belonging and individual potential was helpful. However, we anticipate that the proposal will remain on the proxy ballot and hope that Ford will use the opportunity to explain its decision publicly.

Walmart announced in December that it will be rolling back some of its DEI initiatives and modifying its DEI language while continuing to encourage “a sense of belonging” for its employees, customers, and suppliers. PAB and other investors have engaged with Walmart for more than 30 years, including numerous dialogues and proposals that flagged the business and financial risks to Walmart associated with systemic racism, discrimination, and inequity as well as the significant benefits of advancing DEI. 

On January 15, the PAB and other Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) investors sent an Investor Statement to CEO Doug McMillon and issued a press release expressing our deep disappointment regarding Walmart’s recent announcement about its DEI commitments. Subsequently, investors met with Walmart about its DEI program changes and we plan to continue engaging the company on that issue.

Early executive orders from the new Trump Administration have fueled fears that companies could come under federal investigation for their DEI programs and policies, and more companies, such as Target, have recently announced changes in their programs. We anticipate that urging companies to continue to prioritize DEI will be a significant focus for our engagements with U.S. companies for some time to come.