Celebrating the 11th Annual Setting a Place for My Sister Breakfast
October 5, 2007, at Marriott Pittsburgh City Center

Breakfast has been served with grace and efficiency by the wait staff and eaten with relish. The raffle prizes have been exclaimed over and raffle tickets purchased. The large banquet hall is filled with the friends of Sisters Place . . .

to whom Board President Mary Ellen Rufft offers a warm greeting and . . .

the good news that Sr. Mary Parks, a Sister of St. Joseph, assumed the position of Executive DIrector of Sisters Place on October 3.

Immediate Past Board President Wilma McNeese offers her congratulations.

This year's Community Partner Award is presented to the Homeless Children's Education Fund in recognition of its long-time support of the work of Sisters Place and in thanks for its building and furnishing of the Learning Center and Resource Library.

Jennifer Banks Vickers, Managing Director of HCEF, HCEF Trustee Tina Lynch, Founder Joe Lagana, and several HCEF staff members are on hand to receive the award, which honors those who have made a difference in the lives of the homeless families served by Sisters Place.

Sally Wiggin emcees the program with grace and good humor, to both of which the audience responds.

A child speaks of what Sisters Place means to him and his mother.

The poignancy of the story shared by a Sisters Place mother – a story, bravely told, of God-given courage and inner strength found in the midst of debilitating addiction and the pain of a degenerative disease – brings tears to listeners' eyes as they celebrate with joy this woman's re-creation of herself and her life.

And then children of Sisters Place sing and dance to a song that is the very story of mothers and sons and daughters who find in Sisters Place support in the remaking of their lives: Johnny Nash's I Can See Clearly Now

". . . the rain is gone, I can see all the obstacles in my way, . . . the pain is gone . . .the bad feelings have gone away"

"It's gonna be a bright . . . sunshiny day "

Read the mother's story
Read the boy's story
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