Federal Hill parish dedicates new baby closet for local pregnancy center

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By Lauren Clem, Staff Reporter

PROVIDENCE — In a quiet set of rooms overlooking the bustle of Atwells Avenue, neat stacks of baby clothes sit awaiting the mothers who will take them home to their infants and toddlers. The rooms, located on the third floor of the rectory at Holy Ghost Church, once sat empty but will now serve as the extended storage space of the Mother of Life Center, a crisis pregnancy center located just down the street.

“It’s just a matter of trying to help out what’s in the neighborhood,” said Father Francesco Francese, pastor of Holy Ghost and neighboring St. Mary Church. “The Mother of Life Center is only so big, and then we thought, the third floor of Holy Ghost isn’t being occupied, so that was it.”

The Mother of Life Center is a non-diocesan Catholic pregnancy center that serves women and their babies who are in need of social and material support. The center offers pregnancy tests and counseling as well as parenting classes, referrals for medical care and baby clothing and supplies.

On Monday, September 25, Father Francese gathered with representatives of the Mother of Life Center and various supporters to bless the newly dedicated “Haven of Hope.” Several members of both parishes contributed their time and efforts to prepare the rooms for their new function. Father Jorge Carmona, pastoral associate at Holy Ghost Church, painted the space, and Valerie Bishop, office manager at St. Mary Church and a volunteer at the Mother of Life Center, helped coordinate the project, while her son, Zac Bishop, completed the physical work of transporting clothing and arranging the space with assistance from Sacristan Jose Lopez.

The project also received support from the Congregation of Notre Dame, an order that has long had a close relationship with St. Mary Church, where the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame once taught at the parish school. Though the sisters no longer maintain a large presence in Rhode Island, their legacy lives on in the work of the CND Associates, an assembly of lay members who continue the sisters’ mission of service to others throughout the state.

The CND Associates assisted with the purchase of shelves and bins for the new room, and Associate Mary Jean “M.J.” Miniati attended the dedication along with Sister Jenny Ricci, the last remaining Sister of the Congregation of Notre Dame serving in the state.

“Where there’s a need, we try to fill it,” explained Miniati. “We take vows like the sisters, not of poverty, but of action.”

According to Mother of Life Center Director Gail Faraj-Musleh, the new space will meet an important need for the center following a recent renovation, which created an up-to-date classroom for parenting classes at the Federal Hill location but eliminated some storage space.

“When the mom attends parenting classes, she gets to pick five outfits out every time she attends,” explained Faraj-Musleh. “There are so many generous churches that love to have [baby] showers. Now, we have somewhere to put [the collected supplies] and make sure it’s rotated properly.”

Bishop said the parishioners have been happy to support the center and look forward to continuing to contribute with donations of time and clothing, including handmade blankets for newborn infants of mothers who visit the center.

“I just felt that it was an important thing for both parishes to get together and do something together,” she said. “The moms that I’ve been working with are so grateful to the center. If they didn’t have the center, I don’t know what they would have.”