Pastoral and Social Ministries
We use our gifts to serve God by empowering people, especially women and children. Our diverse programs extend from faith formation in parishes, retreat leadership and spiritual development for groups and individuals, elder care and in-home nursing services, prison ministry and personal counseling.
Tonantzin Women’s Center
Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua, Mexico
This center [Centro Mujeres Tonantzin] was first established in the city of Juarez to support migrant women and children who are victims of abuse and poverty. The center has expanded to three more locations in the city of Juarez and another in Chihuahua, responding to the needs of women and their families, providing them with the skills and support that will allow them to have a better quality of life.
Incarnate Word Foundation
St. Louis, Missouri
The Incarnate Word Foundation supports organizations that address the root causes of social problems with the goal of building healthy communities. The Foundation is a resource to community partners in the St. Louis area.
With a focus on funding programs that serve the economically poor, especially women, children, and the elderly, the Foundation strives to be a catalyst for change and for improving the quality of life of those served.
As part of its mission of caring in the St. Louis area, the Foundation has awarded over $20 million in grants, which have helped transform communities through education, advocacy, and critical funding.
Visitation House Ministries
San Antonio, Texas
Visitation House Ministries serves women and children at the socio-economic margins of San Antonio. Homeless mothers with young children are empowered through housing, education, employment and a caring community, as they become self-sufficient members of society.
Participants are accepted into a two-year program that provides transitional housing while they attend school and learn both parenting and life skills that will enable them to live independently and provide a stable environment for their children.
In addition, the ministry operates La Casita Learning Center, which empowers low-income women from area neighborhoods through education. An afterschool children’s program works with youth to build self-confidence and raise educational levels.
El Puente – Hispanic Ministry
Jefferson City, Missouri
El Puente creates a “bridge between cultures,” reaching out to Spanish-speaking immigrants in the mid-Missouri area to connect them with church and community resources.
This ministry offers transportation, translation, a faith community, education/tutoring and other services aimed to integrate new immigrants to life in the United States while preserving their cultural values.
This center serves the needs of Cole and Moniteau counties in Missouri. It is the only social outreach program of its kind in the Jefferson City diocese.
Cooperativa de Café Tienmelonla Nich Klum
Chiapas, Mexico
Serving the indigenous people of Chiapas, this ministry focuses on the cultivation and trading of coffee as a means to generate income and provide a better quality of life. For more than 18 years, the cooperative has trained approximately 350 persons in the organic coffee industry, resulting in a positive impact for over 1400 families in the area and providing a meaningful alternative to illegal activities that threaten the safety and livelihood or residents.
Vasco de Quiroga Children’s Day Care Center
Mexico City
The mission of Estancia Infantil Vasco de Quiroga is to provide loving attention to infants and children under five years of age in one of Mexico City’s poorest areas where single mothers and families work hard to meet basic subsistence needs, nutritional and developmental needs their children.
Estancia Infantil Vasco de Quiroga focuses on children of single mothers and children of families in poverty who need a safe and growth-enhancing place for their children so that they can work during the day. The day care center receives children from 45 days old to 5 years old.
The day care center provides care Monday through Friday from 7 A.M to 6 PM. All year long. It provides qualified staff, including a nurse and teachers to give attention to early stimulation needs of the children. Imperative to the proper growth of each child is nutrition. Meals are provided at the center as they may not be later provided in the home where resources are scarce. The center allows the mother or bread-winner of the family unit to accept full-time work with confidence that her child/children are well cared for, supervised, properly fed, and engaged in appropriate skills training in her absence. The demand is great in this sector of the city as it continues to be grow in population.
Our institution is located in Mexico City, in Alvaro Obregón, one of the marginalized areas, inhabited by people coming from the surrounding rural and mountainous areas seeking work and a better life for themselves and their children through improvement of their economic situation.
Chilcuautla
Hidalgo, Mexico
Four of our Sisters, in collaboration with Assumption Parish, are developing a family formation program in Mezquital, in the state of Hidalgo, México, whose population is composed primarily of the indigenous tribe known as Hñähñü.
The project is two-pronged: providing pastoral formation and offering much needed community service in this isolated area. Its goal is to bring the populations of Mezquital and the surrounding pueblos closer together to create stronger ties with their faith community and the parish.
The community service portion of the project aims to accomplish three things: 1) cultivate and reclaim the culture of the area; 2) market local crafts, and 3) implement and use alternative medicine.
The program comprises:
VISITING FAMILIES in the Mezquital and surrounding communities to gain a better understanding of them and their needs, both from a faith perspective and in finding solutions together to enhance their individual lives and that of their families.
ENGAGING IN PRISON MINISTRY (CERESO – Social Readaptation Centers in Mexico) by forming groups of women prisoners to create and sell handcrafted and embroidered clothes in keeping with their Otomí tradition to support their basic needs during their imprisonment.
TRAINING CATECHISTS through teaching pedagogical techniques, workshops, courses, and meetings to prepare them to assume leadership in deepening the faith of their communities.
FORMING PROPHETIC, PASTORAL GROUPS to become multipliers of the salvific message both on a city governance and community level.
RESCUING OR RECLAIMING THE TRIBAL CULTURE by supporting Hñähñü families and communities in assessing, valuing and reclaiming their cultural richness, through participation and collaboration in their festivities and in producing and selling their handicrafts.
PROVIDING TRAINING IN ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE AND FIRST AID for the Hñähñü population who request these skills to prepare them to meet the health needs and urgencies that occur in their communities.
St. Elizabeth Adult Day Care Center
St. Louis, Missouri
Founded in 1981 by the Sisters of the Most Precious Blood, this ministry was transferred to our Congregation in 2018. The Center offers a structured, comprehensive program that provides a variety of health and social support services to meet the needs of functionally challenged individuals.
