“You’re just given so much to work with in a life and you have to do the best you can with what you got.  That’s what piecin’ is.  The materials is passed on…and you make do with what’s give to you.”

Since 1997, the Sisters of St. Joseph Charitable Fund has been privileged to provide some of the “pieces” that our grantees cut and assemble according to the pattern of their unique missions.  In five years, the SSJCF has made 288 grants totaling nearly $5 million dollars.

This year we launched the Health Ministry Initiative (HMI), a program to improve wholistic health by promoting health ministries in faith-based Congregations.  A few of the projects currently funded under this Initiative include:

The Wirt County Parish Nurse Program, an ecumenical ministry of six churches, approaches health ministry by addressing health promotion and illness prevention from a spiritual perspective.  With support from the SSJCF, this program will soon expand into Roane and Calhoun Counties.

Another grant helps FaithLink, to recruit and match volunteer caregivers from local churches with people who are homebound through disability, chronic illness, or age.

"My family lives too far away to help me much.  I have arthritis, diabetes, and poor eyesight.  I need help with housekeeping.  FaithLink has been a Godsend.  Someone to help me around the house, to visit with me, someone I can talk to."  

The local Gabriel Project receives operational funding through the HMI.  Another ecumenical collaboration, this program provides support and assistance to women facing crisis pregnancies.   Each church, working through its volunteers, develops a unique response to the families under its care.  To date, over 100 families are stronger thanks to the care and love of these Gabriel churches.

The materials that “is passed on” to the SSJCF that are then passed on to others allow us to more than “make do…”  It allows us to gather the random bits and pieces, to bind them together with a common thread – a mission of health and wellness – to transform them into a beautiful patchwork – healthy and sustainable communities. 

I plan my quilts just like I used to plan my house.  Folks say, “How come you quilt so good?”  I say, “If you make careful plans, it will come out right.”