The Sisters of the Precious Blood have awarded grants to 63 social service agencies, schools and social programs from the congregation’s Maria Anna Brunner (MAB) Fund. The grants will support projects in 2013.
Founded in 1991, the fund supports agencies and programs that are sponsored by a Precious Blood Sister who is either actively involved with the program or is familiar with the people receiving the grant. This year’s grant amounts range from $1,200 to the maximum of $20,000. The funded agencies are located in areas where Precious Blood Sisters minister including Dayton, Cincinnati and Toledo in Ohio, and California, Michigan, Guatemala and Chile.
Some of the programs receiving MAB funds in 2013 are:
• The tech-reach community outreach at Elder High School in Cincinnati, in support of a program in which Elder shares it’s technology and resources with its neighbors in need.
• Su Casa Hispanic Center in Cincinnati, for office space and equipment.
• The Mustard Seed in Dayton, to incorporate the A.C.E. (Assess, Correct and Evaluate) Process into services currently offered to help teen mothers achieve success.
• We Care Arts in Dayton; for art classes for people with physical and/or mental disabilities.
• St. Vincent de Paul, Precious Blood Conference, Dayton for living expenses of the poor of Precious Blood Parish and northwest Dayton.
• St. Joseph the Worker Catholic Mission in Elkhorn, Ky.; MAB funds will be used to supplement salaries and overhead expenses of the Thrift Shop and Laundromat, and to respond to requests for emergency monies for rent and utilities.
• Suicide Prevention Center, Inc.; MAB funds will help support the SPC crisis hotline. The hotline serves the needs of the people in 24 southwestern Ohio counties whose lives are endangered by suicidal thoughts/behaviors or whose life problems put them at risk for suicide.
Precious Blood Sisters are asked to recommend agencies and programs for funding each January and applications are due in March. A board of three Sisters, three lay people and a chairwoman reviews the applications and identifies programs for funding. The recommendations were sent to the congregation’s council in May and the funds were distributed in June.
In evaluating applications, the board takes into account the program’s social impact and the impact the funding will have on the applicant’s mission, said Precious Blood Sister Ruth Ann Meyer, chair of the MAB Grant Fund Board. The money cannot be used for capital improvement or construction projects.
Projects must address one or more of the following: support systemic change; provide service to those who suffer from poverty; create processes that facilitate reconciliation; promote the reduction of violence in society; and empower individuals to take their place in Church and society.
The origin of the Maria Anna Brunner Fund dates to 1979 when the Sisters of the Precious Blood moved out of their Dayton motherhouse building and into a smaller adjacent building in order to provide a new place for a healthcare facility called the Maria Joseph Living Care Center (MJC). When in 1985 the MJC was well underway in providing needed levels of healthcare to the Dayton community, the MJC’s parent organization, the Samaritan Health Resources, purchased the building from the Sisters.
Shortly thereafter the Sisters began a community-wide stewardship process leading to the decision of how to use the monies from the sale. The community decided to invest the sale monies. Sixty percent of the income earned from this investment then would be allocated toward programs that help the poor. The allocations would be in the form of grants and the fund was named after the Sisters of the Precious Blood’s foundress, Maria Anna Brunner who was well known for her care of the poor.
– Story by Dave Eck