She Brings Glad Tidings With Great Joy
Sister Mary Isaac’s St. Mary-Tileston Outreach shows God’s love to the needy
By Rich Reece / Pictures by EW Photography
And the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us, and we saw His glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).
Over the door of Sister Mary Isaac Jogues Koenig’s office at the Saint Mary-Tileston Outreach Center in Wilmington is a sign that says, “Love Grows Here.” And right under the sign, as if to illustrate it, a young woman is tearfully thanking Sister Isaac and a volunteer, retired social worker Elsie ??. Weeks before, the young mother of four children had come to the center $200 short on her electric bill. Her power was going to be turned off the next day. “I generally can’t give a person more than $40, but when we have a St. Mark’s grant we can give $100 to a family. In this case, she had done so much running around that we decided to give her $200 to keep her lights on. She said she would return today with the difference. And she has.”
As Christians anticipate the Nativity of Christ, the Feast that celebrates God’s love becoming flesh in the person of Jesus, it’s natural to ask, “How does that love continue to become real in our world today?” Sister Isaac’s Outreach Center is an inspiring answer. Monday through Thursday, the Outreach disburses food, clothing, furniture, household items and hygiene items to the poor, whom Sister Isaac and all her 150 volunteers refer to as “guests.”
The Outreach operates from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. “But we usually close before we open,” Sister laughs. The center can only handle thirty-five guests a day. Ten of those may receive money up to $40, in the form of a check made out to a landlord or utility company or for gasoline. The guests often start lining up in the wee hours of the morning, while it’s still dark. If it’s raining or chilly out, Sister will let the people in early, and the quota is often reached before official opening time.
Guests are interviewed by three successive volunteers to determine their needs, their assets and to help with advice about other avenues of assistance. If they are in need of money to pay a bill, they see Sister Isaac. On a Thursday morning, Sister’s first interview is an army veteran with a bill from a self-storage company in Utah. Wilmington is his home, but he bought things for his children’s Christmas while he was in Utah and needs to liberate them from storage. His military disability benefits are tied up in red tape. In the course of the interview, Sister learns that the young man is a graduate of Saint Mary’s School. In fact Sister Isaac, who started the Outreach in 1984, was probably working there when the vet was a student. Sister writes a check to the storage company, about half the total bill. “I have soft spot for veterans,” she says. “My brother was in Vietnam.”
Sister Isaac, who grew up in upstate New York, is a member of the Ursuline Sisters, primarily a teaching Order. “They were my teachers,” she says, and I always wanted to be one of them.” A She has two degrees from Marquette University. In the ‘60s and ‘70s she worked in education administration in Milwaukee and Louisiana. She came to Saint Mary to work in faith formation. When another Ursuline Sister arrived in North Carolina to do that work, Father (now Monsignor) Steve Worsley suggested that Sister Isaac start a ministry for the poor.
She began what came to be known as the St. Mary Social Outreach Program, serving the needy from downtown Wilmington and surrounding cities. Sister Isaac also helped spur the development of HUD-sponsored low-income housing for senior citizens in her area, the Hadden Hall Apartments, and launched a food pantry, Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard, which provides food for thousands of individuals and families. One of her newer initiatives is a program to meet the dietary needs of people suffering from diabetes. About 100 diabetics per month receive the fresh meat, fruits and vegetables necessary to keep the disease under control.
For her work, Sister Isaac has received the North Carolina’s Human Relations Award, the Albert Schweitzer Honors Scholar Award from the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, Marquette’s Alumni Service to the Community Award and a humanitarian award from the Unitarian Church, among others. When she grants interviews and accepts awards, however, she does it to raise awareness of the needs and dignity of the poor.
“The bottom line is education,” she says. “I want to break down the stereotypes people have about the poor – that they’re lazy, that they don’t care, that they don’t want to work. Almost all the people I see are trying to get by on $600 to $1000 a month. A woman came in this morning: She gets SSI benefits of $600; her rent is $150 a week. So I tell people that what we do isn’t a handout, it’s a hand up.”
How does she educate people about the needy?
“I tell stories. I try to put the acts out there. And I encourage people to volunteer. Lots of people don’t want to talk to the poor. They’ll give them five dollars and walk on. But here you meet the poor in flesh and blood, you see the courage it takes to ask for help. When you look at what they have you can only ask, ‘How do you survive?’”
She talks about a man who lives in a shelter. It costs $20 a week. “Sixty men in all states of health and mental awareness living in a small space. I don’t think I could survive that way. And they let them out of the shelters at six in the morning and they can’t go back until six-thirty at night. So you see them hanging out on the streets. Do you think they want to hang out on the streets all day?
“A huge part of what we do here is to help people feel good about themselves. So when people come for clothes, for instance, we have dressers, volunteers who meet the guest, learn their size and then go back to pick out things they think will make the guest look good. I really think the poor come here in large part because of the feeling of the place, the respect we show them.”
A place like the Outreach depends on a wide range of support: Volunteers from all faiths, people like retired IBM-er Mary Ann Kotas, who’s developed spread sheets to keep track of all the people who receive assistance and when they received it. Mary Ann also manages the furniture room, matching items with needs and soliciting donations. She talks about a man who came to Wilmington to take custody of his children. “Their mother was addicted to crack, and he needed beds for the children. The next day he came to thank us. He said it was the first night in a long time that the children had slept in real beds.” The parish has a truck, and a work-for-rent program hires people at a just wage to pick up and deliver furniture.
Sister Isaac praises the support she’s received from the pastors of Saint Mary’s, and the Tileston School, which occupies part of the same building. The neighboring parishes in Wilmington – St. Mark, Immaculate Conception and St. Therese – all donate money and goods and volunteer time to the center. “We get a lot of stuff,” Sister Isaac says, “and I think people give because they see us giving it out.”
Father Robert Kus, Pastor and Rector of St. Mary’s, says that Sister Isaac’s ministry “makes our parish a beacon of hope to the poor and the outcast of the Cape Fear Coast. She always treats her guests with total respect, showing our parish community what it means to see Christ in each person. And everything she does is done in great humility and always with joy and good cheer. She is deeply loved and treasured by one and all throughout our city and region.”
All year – not just at Christmas – the Saint Mary-Tileston Outreach Center incarnates God’s love for the poor. But especially during this season, Sister Isaac’s example is a challenge to all of us. “We are all called to serve,” she says. “How are we going to respond?”