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Formerly St. Martin de Porres House of Hope - A Supportive Community for Women in Recovery Since 1983
When Carmelita Woods entered House of Hope in 1991, she was in an outpatient rehabilitation program for drugs and alcohol. She hated where she was living. A woman who lived at St. Martin de Porres House of Hope with her six kids told Carmelita about the shelter. Carmelita called Sr. Therese the next day. “She […]
Jackie Edens has devoted her career to helping Chicago’s homeless and disadvantaged. She started working for the city as a Mobile Crisis Intervention Worker in 1975, when the city relied exclusively on nonprofit organizations to aid the homeless. The police department assigned her to work on social service-related cases. Jackie met Sr. Connie in her […]
Carol Cronin’s family foundation has been supporting St. Martin de Porres House of Hope for more than 20 years. “My sister Hannah first heard Sister Connie speak to a group of women in Northbrook about 1985. She made a contribution and still has the thank you note signed by Sister Therese. When our family started a […]
Gloria Gleave started her career as a computer programmer in the early 1970s and ended it as a certified Project Manager. In the late 1980s, she met Sister Connie Driscoll at a Women in Management event in Chicago. She was impressed with the work St Martin de Porres House of Hope was doing in Woodlawn. In 1995, […]
Father Tom grew up in the Marquette Park area on Chicago’s South Side, a graduate of St. Rita of Cascia High School. Ordained in the Augustinian Order, he returned to St. Rita, where he worked first as school chaplain, then as president, president/principal and finally as chairman of the board. “I couldn’t imagine 21 happier […]
Sandy and Brian Kraimer met while attending college in Wisconsin, got married and moved to Chicago for work. Sandy thought the move would be temporary. That was almost 30 years ago. The Kraimers remained in Chicagoland where Sandy, president of the board of Harmony Hope & Healing, works to make it a better place for […]
Walk into the doors of St. Martin de Porres House of Hope, and the first room you will come to has walls painted a vivid red. Sunlight streams through the windows. Comfortable chairs and couches, a piano, and bookcases adorn the room. To the side are desks full of computers. This is the Marin Room, […]
There I was, in my mid-20s, living in the attic of a homeless shelter with 60 women and about 70 of their children,” John Driscoll says with a smile. Today John is senior vice president in charge of recovery services with Hazelden Betty Ford, overseeing a staff of 900 and 17 treatment centers nationwide that […]
Brother Tom Collins, an Edmund Rice Christian Brother and Chicago native, is a teacher to his core. He studied chemistry as an undergrad, earned a master’s of science in chemistry from Notre Dame, and went on to earn a master’s of education in school administration and a master’s in Christian spirituality. As Brother Tom was […]
Contributed by Marco Pardo Meditation for the Day A balanced spirituality asks two questions. The first one is: What can this practice do for me? Since most of us seek God from need, any spirituality that doesn’t address our needs will be of little value to us. As addicts, we come into recovery when our […]
