A whole new appreciation

I’ve recently relocated to Dallas, Texas, facing an overwhelming number of charities to become involved with. In a city of 7.5 million, this is easy, compared to looking in cities of 222,000. The change has made me increasingly grateful to Catholic Charities of Spokane, an integral part of my life since I was a girl attending Saint Augustine’s Catholic School, (now Cataldo) Marycliff and Holy Names Academy.

In college, at Catholic University of America, I kept up with Catholic Charities’ news, because my parents, Nancy and Jim, were always CC supporters. At age 4, CC brought me lifelong brothers, Cuban refugee teenagers and Gonzaga Prep/University graduates, still a big part of my life. As a child, I “helped” at House of Charity, a warehouse on Trent, with Fr.Paul DePierre and Fr. Eugene Mulligan lovingly serving anyone who needed help.

Catholic Charities still does the work of Christ, operating as an effective and widely utilized urban nonprofit. Catholic Charities has grown with Spokane and their support of Black Lives Matter is critical to the healthy future of the city.

Believe me — a girl whose father was close friends and office mates with Carl Maxi — racism IS institutionalized in numerous ways in Spokane. Quality, organized, effective community services aren’t easy to run, looking at reviews of such agencies here, and Spokane is lucky to have Catholic Charities. I applaud them and will miss them in my life.

Janet Gillespie

Dallas, Texas