St. Gabriel reaches out, touches all ages
through services, opportunities, activities
BY TERRY DICKSON Gulf Pine Catholic (See related Article)
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MOUND BAYOU - Nestled deep in the Mississippi Delta community of Mound Bayou, St. Gabriel Mercy Center and the sisters who staff it are making a huge difference in the lives of the people they serve.
“Mound Bayou is the oldest municipality in the United States founded by freed slaves that’s still in existence. There are others, but they’ve gone out of existence,” said Sister Donald Mary Lynch, executive director of St. Gabriel Mercy Center.
The population is roughly 2,000, all African Americans, save for the sisters who work at St. Gabriel Mercy Center.
There are 21 churches and basically no businesses to speak of.
“In its prime, it had 9,000 people, 50 businesses, four cotton gins, a Baptist seminary, movie theater and hospital. It was really thriving,” said Sister Lynch.
“In 1920, the price of cotton dropped from a dollar a pound to .13 cents a pound and the people who really wanted to support their families moved north to Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis, Detroit and places like that.”
The Sisters of Mercy have served the community of Mound Bayou since 1999 and Sister Lynch has been there eight years. She previously served on her order’s leadership team and took a year’s sabbatical before coming to St. Gabriel.
“I chose to come here,” she said. “It was a big adjustment to the point where I had never worked with all African-American people. I just asked for a one-year appointment.”
Sister Donella Hartman has been second in command since April 2009.
The building where the Sisters of Mercy work is 55 years old. St. Gabriel School opened on September 7, 1954.
“Three Oblate Sisters of Providence out of Baltimore, Md., came and opened the school,” Sister Lynch said. “Actually, in 1948, the Bishop of Natchez appointed Father John Bowman, an SVD priest, to start a mission. Five acres of land were given to the church and another five acres were purchased.
“We’re sitting on 10 acres of land. Father Bowman built the original church with a small residence behind it. Then, three years later when the sisters came to open a school, Father Bowman moved over here to the school and the three sisters moved into the residence of the church.
“In 1960, a new church was built and, in 1962, the current convent was built, so the sisters moved out of the old church and into the convent.”
Brother Pius Kamphefner, FSC, the parish administrator, lives in the original church.
The school, which originally catered to grades K-8, was staffed by the Oblate Sisters of Providence for 30 years.
“They were a black community, so they really fit in well. They gave a lot of good foundation to the kids going through the elementary school,” Sister Lynch said.
In 1985, the Sisters of St. Agnes out of Fond Du Lac, Wis., came to the school.
“They stayed five years and, in 1990, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart from Reading Penn., came and they stayed until the school closed in 2001,” Sister Lynch said.
“In the mid-90s, it changed from an elementary school to an early childhood program for two, three and four-year-olds.”
In 2001, the school closed and the Sisters of Mercy took over the classrooms.
“Sister Helen, a Missionary Sister of the Sacred Heart, was a retired nurse in the community and she came down here to see what she could do and she was told to just be with the people a little bit, look around and see where the needs were,” Sister Lynch said. “Well, it didn’t take her long to figure out young girls were getting pregnant and didn’t know what to do, so she started the Parents As Teachers Program.
“That went along well and Sister Cyrena (Harkins) , a Sister of Mercy who was the assistant superintendent of schools, could see what was happening with the school and that it wasn’t going to last much longer. So she recruited Brother Tom Geraghty, FSC, who was the principal of the school in Greenville to come up here and be the director and start a center for the people.
“We did a needs assessment in the community and figured out what the needs were. So, when Sister Helen would go into the homes visiting new mothers and new parents, she would see electrical wires hanging out, rats running along the floors and what have you.
“Brother Tom, then, would take some of the young kids who were just walking the streets into those (run-down) homes, teach them how to do fix-up and repair work and was able to pay those kids. They didn’t have to run drugs. They could do something constructive and learn something. So that’s kind of how our jobs program started.
“When he realized children were dropping out of school, Brother Tom, being a good Christian Brothers teacher, would teach them the GED.”
Sister Lynch said that, as the center was open, school kids would wander over after school.
“So Brother Tom bought a pool table, foosball, air hockey and ping pong and the kids could come play in a safe and supervised environment after school instead of running the streets,” she said.
That, in essence, was how the center’s Jobs and GED programs started.
“Then, Brother Tom wrote a grant to the Sisters of Mercy and bought one of the vans out there and recruited Sister Patricia Jane, who had experience with senior citizens, and she would drive around town and see women just sitting under the trees doing nothing and she’d stop and talk to them and that’s kind of how the Seniors Program started.
St. Gabriel offers a variety of programs.
The Jobs Program at St. Gabriel has a computer lab pen Monday — Friday from 9 am - 5 pm. Eliza Jackson-Williams, who has over 27 years of computer experience and is a Certified Business Official and Trainer, serves as the Computer Lab Coordinator.
“(St. Gabriel used) to offer a Computer Literacy Program, but the new coordinator feels like classes don’t work because everybody’s at a different level and she’s correct about that, so it’s more one-on-one tutoring,” Sister Lynch said. “They offer the Mavis Beacon typing courses for those just learning word processing and the coordinator helps people look online for jobs.
“She will post job openings on the bulletin board and you may see people come in and look at that. If there are online applications, she’ll help them with submitting those.”
Jobs in Mound Bayou are scant. “The jobs might be in Cleveland, Clarksdale or Tunica, but, if you don’t have transportation, you can’t get the jobs,” Sister Hartman said.
“The biggest problem up here is transportation. There is no public transportation, so people have to depend on people to take them places. If they are already poor and other people are taking them, it’s costing $20 just to get to Cleveland.
Sister Hartman said many of the students in Mound Bayou drop out of school. “The dropout rate is big here. Out of a class of 40-something, nine seniors failed this year, which is unreal. It’s unheard of, I think. It’s a horrible rate,” she said.
“Some of those students will decide eventually to take online classes and some who have graduated will take online classes. That’s what they do in there. It’s computer training and job applications, but people will come in and she’ll teach them how to use email and search the Internet. She’ll teach them anything they want to learn.”
The Parents as Teachers Program is run by two African-American women who share the responsibilities of managing the program.
“They (switch off and) work every other week. They’re part-time,” Sister Hartman said. “They have 70 families of children from the ages of birth to three years-old and they go into the homes. They conduct family visits once a month. They do developmental screening on the children. If any of the children are behind, they’ll refer them to resources in the area so the children are well prepared to go into the Head Start Program.
“In addition, they distribute diapers and formula and, every time they visit a family, they bring a board book so the parents are reading to their children, teaching them shapes and sizes, alphabets and those types of things.”
In the Senior Outreach Program, Sister Hartman said most of the people are in their 80s and 90s. “It’s amazing because you won’t think that when you see them,” she said.
Once a month the center recognizes people celebrating their birthdays in a particular month. For the July birthday party, everyone was asked to wear red, white and blue and volunteers from Our Lady of Victories and Sacred Heart CYO in Pascagoula decorated the senior room in red, white and blue.
Sister Donella said four men volunteer to drive the center’s two vans on a daily basis to pick up the seniors.
“Sometimes it takes an hour to make the rounds. They come back at 11 a.m. and then the seniors go into their room and lead a half-hour devotional and it’s inspiring as all get out. It could be poetry, prayers, or intentions. It’s whatever they choose to do.”
Each day, the seniors do exercises and are served a light meal provided by the Senior Outreach Coordinator.
Afternoons are filled with various activities. “It could be a guest speaker. They go on field trips. They’ve been on field trips for diabetic classes because a lot of them are diabetic,” Sister Hartman said. “They went into Cleveland last week and played bingo at the library and they’re supposed to go back to do an arts and crafts project.
“They’ve been to the B.B. King Museum in Indianola. We’re setting up an advisory group to come up with more ideas, but we’re talking about taking them on a picnic just to get them out when the weather gets cooler.”
Sister Hartman said approximately 30 seniors are enrolled in the program, with 15-18 coming on a daily basis.
“They don’t all come because sometimes they’re sickly,” she said.
Dwana Lyles, who has a degree in sociology, has worked as Senior Outreach Coordinator since 2006.
Her responsibilities include planning and overseeing activities, preparing healthy meals, providing transportation when needed, developing exercise programs and working with their spiritual, emotional, social and physical well being.
“They have wonderful activities,” said Sister Hartman. “Recently, a lady from California who sends a lot of donations donated a Wii. The Duke scholars put that up for them last Friday and they were playing tennis. They were having a great time and then the TV went out, so now we don’t have a TV.”
The majority of the seniors are females. “Every once in a while, we get a man. We’ve had several along the years and we thought maybe we were having the wrong activities,” Sister Lynch said. “We told them to come on in and they could play pool because we have a pool table in here. It’s hard and those who did come have gotten old and died.”
Derotha Weeks has been coming to the center five years. She said the senior outreach program has been a real blessing.
“It means a whole lot because I don’t have to sit at home all the time. I live alone and this gives me somewhere to come,” said Weeks, the mother of seven children, 23 grandchildren and 24 great-grandchildren.
Weeks said she enjoys playing bingo and visiting with her friends.
“Today I only won one game, but sometimes you win a whole bunch of them,” she said.
The GED Program began in August 2002 with a part-time teacher. Today there are two teachers working with students who desire to obtain their high school diploma. The classes meet three times a week.
“What I’ve learned from the people here is that, if we can impact one life at a time, that’s really what makes a difference,” Sister Lynch said.
She admits not all stories are successful.
However, 38 people have successfully completed St. Gabriel’s GED Program and, after much hard work, one man finally earned his GED at the age of 62.
St. Gabriel Closet, which opened in 2002 as a thrift shop, offers a little bit of everything and is open most days from 10 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. It is one of the major funding sources for the center.
The Mound Bayou Public Library at the center opened in April 2002 as a branch of the Bolivar County Library. It is open four hours two days a week.
An Emergency Needs Assistance Program has been in place since 2001. A social worker assists clients to assess their needs for assistance with utilities, rent, food and medication.
During the individual sessions money management and job awareness information are provided and networking is done to provide further assistance to the client.
Sewing Class/Cottage Industry Program is coordinated by Sister Cleo Henrich and started 2002. Sister Henrich has a bachelor’s in education and a master’s in administration. One of her current goals is to open an outlet for selling the African clothing sewn at the center.
Sister Donald Mary said approximately 10 to 12 volunteer groups come to Mound Bayou every year from places near and far.
Recently, a group of eight students and four adults from Our Lady of Victories and Sacred Heart parishes in Pascagoula, St. John the Worker Parish in Moss Point and St. Mary Parish in Gautier spent the week of July 19-25 volunteering at St. Gabriel.
In addition, three Robertson Scholars from Duke University spent nearly two months volunteering there. (See page 12)
“We exist on grants and donations,” Sister Hartman said.
As for a wish list for the center, Sister Hartman said the only things they don’t need are clothes. “We can always use shoes. Anything brand new, we can use. We have like 350 names at Christmas, so we always can use new things. There’s a great need for toys and board books.”
She said they would like to have equipment for volunteers to use such as leaf blowers, edgers, trimmers and other tools for outside use.
Diapers and formula are also a constant need.
And, of course, cash is always welcome.
