Sister Ellen Marie, DC '74, President of Elizabeth Seton High School, and Mr. Aaron Gray and Mrs. Jo Ellen Gray, LEAD Program Coordinators, accepted the St. Louise de Marillac Service Award at the Mission and Ministry, Inc. (MMI) "Stirring the Flames of Charity through Community Engagement" conference in Clearwater Beach, Florida for their leadership of Seton's engineering program. The primary goals of this year's conference were to meet and share information, knowledge and best practices from other organizations and communities and learn from diverse speakers and one another of ways of creating systemic change and collective impact. Our school delegates, also including Mrs. Laura Tarnosky, Service Learning Coordinator, came away from the conference with a renewed sense of spirit, humbled by the broad reach and impact of the benevolence of the Daughters of Charity.
MMI, a granting entity of the Daughters of Charity Province of St. Louise, was established in 1997 to provide financial resources to allow Daughters of Charity to fulfill their ministry of service to those living in poverty. MMI serves as a catalyst for change in the communities where the Daughters of Charity minister. This year, MMI begins its 20th year of grant making in the areas of mission, ministry, Catholic education, training and emergency funding. At the conference, 83 organizations receiving funding for their projects were in attendance, though MMI currently funds over 189 different organizations across the country.