IN THIS ISSUE…

• Blessed Catherine Kasper Award Honor
• College Thanks Donors
• Student Realizes the Dream
• Music Gives New Look on Life
• Fire and Land Stewardship: Burning Questions
• Lindenwood Presents New Collaborative Leadership Program to Help Gather the Lost Sheep
• Filling Empty Bowls
• Coming Home: Are you Jesus?
• Sister Mary Carolyn Welhoelter Remembers Meeting Saint Mother Teresa
• Chapter: A Renewed Spirit
• Advancing the PHJC Charism through Volunteerism
• CARA Study Report on the Associate-Religious Relationship
• General Leadership Visits the United States
• In Memory
• Mother and Daughter Share the Love of Crafting
• Golden Jubilee
• Refugee Summit Addresses Challenges of Immigrants
• Mississippi Moves the Heart

IN THIS ISSUE…

• Ancilla Blessing / Naming Ceremony for Second Resident Hall Brings Crowd
• Meet Adam Thada, Our New Director of Ecological Relationships
• 17th Annual Walk for STH
• A Partnership, and Friendships Blossom
• Cemetery Crew Practices Seventh Corporal Work of Mercy
• The HEALing Continues
• PHJC Volunteer Program
• Reflections of Restoration
• Fairytales Do Come True: 14th Annual Nazareth Home Gala
• Sister Elvia: Perpetual Profession as a Poor Handmaid of Jesus Christ
• Back to Community Care
• PHJCs Welcome an Affiliate
• "Music to Memory" Comes to Catherine Kasper Home through Eagle Scout Project
• Caught in the Whirlwind of the Spirit
• Coming Home to Northwest Indiana - Schedule of Events

Saint Katharina's Calendar Club is the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ monthly giving program. Members of Katharina’s Calendar Club are those who have chosen to support the ministries of the Poor Handmaids with their ongoing monthly donations. These monthly donations help children in Mexico receive a meal at a soup kitchen; help with medical care for those who cannot afford treatment at a hospital in Africa and help serve those in need in the United States. Through the generosity of these monthly donations, members help care for our retired Sisters, tutor and educate young people, help single mothers gain skills in order to support their families and much, much more.

These ongoing donations help bring God’s compassion and care to many others. Each month we can count on these gifts to help carry on the mission of the Poor Handmaids. And for each gift, we are grateful.

If you would like information on monthly giving to Katharina’s Calendar Club, please contact Alicia Hammonds, Donor Relations Officer, at (574) 935-1725 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Gifts may be made through the mail or by automatic credit card deduction. Members receive a Katharina’s Calendar Club Certificate, giving envelopes to be used throughout the year, and a calendar of photos taken by Sister Marguerite Niesen, PHJC, from the grounds at The Center at Donaldson.

IN THIS ISSUE…

• The Center at Donaldson Receives Indiana Bicentennial Green Legacy Award
• Art Mirrors Life in Marshall County
• “You Will Be My Witness”
• From Earthworks to Yellowstone National Park
• Updates from the St. Joseph Community Health Foundation
• Ancilla College Volleyball Celebrates Alumni
• Updates from Catherine Kasper Life Center
• Nazareth Home Volunteer Follows in the Footsteps of Blessed Catherine Kasper
• For Whom the Bells Toll
• 2016 Poor Handmaid Jubilarians Celebrate
• Holy Week Mission in Mexico
• Groundbreaking: The Village of Hope
• Earthworks Welcomes New Director
• PHJC Associates – Beyond Our Borders
• 2nd Annual Nazareth Home Char-a-Tea
• An Update from the PHJC Volunteer Program
• In Memory of Our Sisters

IN THIS ISSUE:

• Companions on the Journey Retreat 2016
• NACAR 20th Anniversary Celebration
• Associate Community 2016 Upcoming Events
• East Three - Service
• East Three - Faith-Share
• What's Going on at MoonTree Studios This Summer?!
• PHJC Associates Beyond Our Borders
• In Memory of Our Sister and Associate
• Upcoming Events at John XXIII Retreat Center
• For Whom The Bells Toll

Sister Magdalen Hellmann (Lorraine) PHJC passed away on June 17, 2016 at the Catherine Kasper Home in Donaldson, Indiana, after a life spent appreciating and nurturing the lives of children and all growing things entrusted to her care.

Sister Magdalen was born in Aviston, Illinois to Henry and Elizabeth (Ottensmeier) Hellmann who preceded her in death along with her brothers Joseph, Cletus and Stephen and her sisters Genevieve Hellmann and Bernadine Kussatz. Her sister Rita Heimann survives along with many nieces and nephews. Sister Magdalen credited her father and life on the family farm for introducing her to the miracle of birth and growth in both nature and humankind. She entered the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ Community as a postulant on December 8, 1948, professed her first vows on June 25, 1951, and celebrated 65 years as a Poor Handmaid Sister this year.

Sister Magdalen earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Sociology and Psychology from Loyola University in Chicago, Illinois in 1960. From 1951 until 1976 Sister ministered as a childcare worker in Chicago (Angel Guardian Children’s Home) and in Belleville, Illinois (St. John’s Children Home). From 1976-1990 she ministered in management at Ancilla Domini Convent in Donaldson, Indiana. From 1990 until 2003 she served as a Sacristan at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at Notre Dame University. After retiring from Notre Dame and working with college students she returned to working with the younger set…caring for babies at Nazareth Home in East Chicago, Indiana. Following her 11 years at Nazareth Home Sister Magdalen “officially” retired to the Catherine Kasper Home in November 2014.

All who knew Sister Magdalen appreciated her gentle sense of humor, her caring ways, her skills with handicrafts, gardening, and quilting. As she appreciated the miracle of growth of the tiny seed into its full potential with God’s help, those who knew her found in her a nurturing, caring, special friend.

Visitation will be held at the Catherine Kasper Home on Tuesday, June 21, 2016 beginning at 4:30 p.m. (EST) A Prayer Service will be held the same evening 7:00 p.m.

Funeral Liturgy will be held in the Catherine Kasper Home Chapel on Wednesday, June 22, 2016 at 11:15 a.m. (EST) Burial will follow in the Mt. Carmel Cemetery, Donaldson, Indiana.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ, PO Box 1, Donaldson.

Co-Founders of the social enterprise startup Handtoheart, an online border-less market allowing refugee women free access to sell their handicrafts to an international audience, paid a visit to the St. Joseph Community Health Foundation May 5. HandtoHeart gives refugee women the ability to work from their homes or community centers in Istanbul. The non-profit organization was the recipient of Istanbul’s first Borderless Hackathon prize, an award sponsored by the U.S. Consulate and Kolektif House. They were in Fort Wayne to learn more from area non-profits who help refugees.

HandtoHeart was invited to the United States under the auspices of the Department of State’s International Visit Program. The group ranged from age 19-29, and are from all over the world. They are united by their humanitarian effort to help Syrian refugees in Turkey

St. Joseph Community Health Foundation in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, is a ministry sponsored by the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ. 

When I asked my brother-in-law for some old jeans to use for a project, my sister quickly put together a bagful that I brought back to Donaldson from a weekend visit with my family. Collection bins were placed near the serving line of our dining room for people to contribute their old, clean jeans.

Maria Center residents, Sisters, co-workers, friends from the area who had read about the event in the local newspapers, joined on March 30, 2016 and worked for two hours cutting apart the jeans and then cutting parts traced on the denim that would be assembled as shoe parts for children in Uganda.

Those who gathered watched a video from the Sole Hope organization that explained how people in Uganda usually wear flip-flops, but there are no flip-flops small enough for the very young and growing children.  As a result, children often get jiggers in the soles of their feet that cause infection and health-related problems.

Using cut up tires, the actual sole is made of a piece of rubber and the denim parts are sewed to that piece of rubber as the upper part of the shoe and the heal.  The shoes are assembled by local people in Uganda and given to the children.

This project made all of us aware of how we can help people we have never met by just giving a few hours of our time to work together on a project that helps people to be healthy.  Some of the women attending from local churches were going to take the project back to their churches. 

Another afternoon will be scheduled so that people continue this project here at The Center at Donaldson.

Just a one month shy of her 100^th birthday and celebration of her 80^th Jubilee, Sister Johnilda Mannhard (Marcella), PHJC died on Sunday, April 10, 2016 in the Catherine Kasper Home in Donaldson, Indiana.

As a small child, Sister Johnilda wanted to help children especially the handicapped and those whom society deemed socially unacceptable by doing what she could to make people feel better. Sister Johnilda was “mother” to many children at Angel Guardian Orphanage (AGO) in Chicago. During a heartfelt speech at the 2015 AGO reunion, former AGO alumnus Joe Ellis said, “Sister Johnilda is the mother I never had and Angel Guardian was my home growing up. Without her efforts, I would have remained the cold, detached and lost child who showed up on Angel Guardian’s doorstep. I would have been unable to understand or value what was being offered to me here.” Because of Sister’s love and care, Joe and some of her other former “kids” called her the “Angel Guardian.”  Her love for them was evidenced as she continued to write, call and visit with them.   

Sister is survived by one sister, Rita (Floyd) Kirstein, and several nieces and nephews.  She was preceded in death by her brothers, Paul (Eileen) Mannhard, Louis (Marcella) Mannhard, Maurice (Vera) Mannhard and her sister Irene (Theodore) Zurliene.

Sister Johnilda (Marcella), the oldest of six children, was born in Highland, Illinois to John and Mary (Luber) Mannhard.  She attended St. Mary’s School in Trenton, Illinois where Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ taught.  She knew at a young age she wanted to be a religious Sister. Sister Johnilda attended Ancilla Domini High School in Donaldson, Indiana.  She entered the Poor Handmaid of Jesus Christ Community as a postulant on September 2, 1933 and professed her first vows on June 25, 1936.  She later graduated from DePaul University with a degree in Education.  She began her elementary school teaching career in 1936 until 1956.  In 1956 Sister was missioned to Angel Guardian Orphanage in Chicago where she ministered for 18 years. Sister Johnilda officially retired to the Catherine Kasper Home in 2015.  

Visitation will be held from 4:30 p.m.- 8:00 p.m. EDT at the Catherine Kasper Home on Thursday, April 14, 2016.  A Prayer Service will be held the same evening at 7:00 p.m.

Mass of Resurrection will be celebrated in the Catherine Kasper Home Chapel on Friday, April 15, 2016 at 11:15 a.m.  Burial will follow in the Mt. Carmel Cemetery, Donaldson, Indiana. 

Memorial contributions may be made to the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ, PO Box 1, Donaldson, IN 46513.