Marie Anne Center closes after 23 years 
of educating youth and adults

By Tanya Connor  
The Catholic Free Press

The Marie Anne Center at St. Bernard Church of Our Lady of Providence Parish is closing, effective Aug. 31, due to changes in people’s needs.

Major services of the 23-year-old center were the after-school and summer programs for young people, and English as a second language classes for adults.

The decision to close was made a few weeks ago, said Sister Michele Jacques, the Sister of St. Anne who founded and directed the center and is a member of Our Lady of Providence Parish. She said activities actually ended Aug. 1 with the conclusion of the summer program and that the other programs finished at the end of the school year and had been expected to start up again this fall.

“It is with heavy heart that I announce the closing,” she said in a letter to friends of the center. “We have welcomed numerous people into our community and into our hearts,” people from different countries and faith traditions. She thanked participants and those who helped, “who allowed us to continue our mission of providing education and living skills to people who might otherwise go without.”

“We know that the seeds planted … will bear much fruit,” Sisters Yvette Dargy and Pauline Laurence, Sisters of St. Anne province leaders, said in a letter to friends of the center, in which they lauded Sister Michele.

“We’ve been very happy and blessed” to have Sister Michele, said Father Jonathan J. Slavinskas, pastor of Our Lady of Providence. He expressed gratitude for the love and good work of those involved and said they and the center will be missed.

Explaining the closing, he said many area schools now have after-school programs too, and two employees who were helping to run the center moved on.

One of those employees, Litgmie Nazaire Theard, administrative assistant and an ESL teacher, said she never wanted to work elsewhere. But, she said, during the coronavirus pandemic children got used to remote learning, and fewer were coming to the center; numbers in the after-school program dwindled from 30 to 40 to a dozen or fewer at a time.

“That kind of put a toll on the center,” she said; the board discussed closing and Sister Michele encouraged her and Fleurimond “Monde” Jean-Pierre, assistant director, to seek other jobs in case the center closed.

Mrs. Theard said she tried unsuccessfully to find a job that would accommodate her part-time Marie Anne Center hours. Her financial needs led her to take a different job – as a case manager helping immigrants, which she also finds rewarding.

The closing “becomes a moment of prayer for the parish to reflect [on]: ‘What are the needs of [the] young people of our community, because [the center] worked with young people primarily,’” Father Slavinskas said.

“I’m working with students from Holy Cross to try to keep a continuity” in continuing ESL classes, he said.

He said the space the center used beneath the church will still be used for religious education, prayer groups and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

Sister Michele, now past retirement age, said she started the center in 2001 “with the inspiration and assistance of Father Richard Trainor,” who was pastor of what was then St. Bernard Parish.

“He welcomed us there,” she said. “He challenged me” to start a ministry of the Sisters of St. Anne.

Named for their foundress, Blessed Marie-Anne Blondin, the center opened, coincidentally, the month she was beatified – April 2001.

“Our location ... in our low-income Lincoln Street neighborhood has allowed us to carry out the mission and ministry of the Sisters of Saint Anne” – following Christ the Educator – Sister Michele said.

“It’s been a blessing for me to have this ministry ... working with all these people,” she said. “It’s also been really good to be housed in the parish,” despite being a ministry of the Sisters, not the parish itself. “I think it’s been very mutual support. Father Trainor ... empowered me to do what I did.” And Father Slavinskas has been very supportive.

Sister Michele herself has been supportive, according to Mrs. Theard.

“She was one of the first faces I saw” when coming to Worcester from Connecticut, after arriving in the United States from Haiti, Mrs. Theard recalled. “She didn’t judge me” or ask uncomfortable questions.

“She just offered me a place to grow” – spiritually and with a job. “I started as a volunteer” at the Marie Anne Center in 2013 and later became a staff member.

“It was a very rewarding job,” she said; people there were like family. “Sister Michele – she’s like a mom. … She’s always ready to listen.”

Sister Michele wanted to make sure Mrs. Theard chose a good husband, and visited her and her daughter, Ariah Theard, born prematurely in January 2020.

“She would ... pray with me, make me laugh,” Mrs. Theard recalled. “My daughter loves her.”
The center operated with financial help from the Sisters of St. Anne, the Westborough-based Saint Francis Community Health Care, Inc. and the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, Sister Michele said. Supporters also contributed money, supplies and their time. A fellow Sister of St. Anne, Sister Ines Almeida, was assistant director for a few years.

“A lot of the things we did, we just responded to needs as we saw them,” Sister Michele said.

The free after-school program for students in grades 2 on up, held four days a week, offered tutoring, homework help, time for reading and computer use, music, art, dance, and special programs, including weekly mentoring from a police officer, she said. Students, especially ones from the College of the Holy Cross, helped.

Holy Cross students also helped with the ESL program, which involved two 10-week semesters four hours a week, Sister Michele said. Numbers of ESL students varied; last spring she had about 15. They hailed from at least 25 countries, paid a fee, and bought their own books.

Sister Rena Mae Gagnon, a Little Franciscan of Mary, taught ESL and sewing, and she selected speakers for weekly Advent and Lenten spiritual programs, which were not resumed after the coronavirus shutdown. She was there most of the 23 years, through this year, Sister Michele said.

The summer program drew up to 40 children, with about 23 this summer, Sister Michele said. This year the center hired seven high school and college students to help, since, unlike other years, the state-funded YouthWorks employment program, hosted by the Worcester Community Action Council, did not pay them to work there.

“We did a lot of mentoring” of the helpers, Sister Michele said. The center also offered a program that taught teenagers about health issues.

With the closing, Sister Michele said she hopes to stay in Worcester but has not made plans for the future yet.