2022 People of Hope
For the first time in nearly 3 years, Providence House hosted its annual People of Hope dinner. This was truly a momentous occasion as we celebrated the resiliency of our organization. In total, we raised over $500,000! This funding will allow us to provide a deeper level of care for the over 600 individuals and families engaged in our programs. It will also allow us to grow our services so even more women in need and continue the work and vision of these two remarkable women.
In the three challenging years since our last People of Hope dinner, we have grown stronger as an agency and as an agent for change in our community. With support from donors, Providence House has increased its capacity to house at-risk women, while developing targeted programs that address the specific needs of those we serve. With enduring homelessness and ongoing troubles at Rikers Island, solutions and positive alternatives are needed now more than ever. Thanks our partners, we know that Providence House has a strong and bright future as we look ahead to new opportunities for opening even more transitional and permanent housing and developing even more robust programs for the women and families that we serve.
See photos from the event: https://www.providencehouse.org/archivepoh22
The 2022 People of Hope dinner was our first opportunity to all come together and honor the lives of Janet D’Addario and Sister Elaine Roulet. These remarkable women shaped the foundation of Providence House over their many years of services.
Honoring Sister Elaine Roulet
In August of 2020, Providence House foundress Sister Elaine Roulet passed away after 71 years of services as a Sister of St. Joseph.. She leaves behind thousands of lives changes by her vision, creative energy, humor, and warmth. In 1979, Sister Elaine and three other members of her order opened Providence House for women released from prison and their children. The Sisters began with no resources. They had only the simple intent to welcome people in the most direct way possible: by providing a place to live and living right alongside them, sharing their day-to-day struggles.
Sister Elaine’s management approach is not taught in MBA programs. She said “yes” to inspiration and then figured out the details along the way—with a lot of help from many other Sisters, lay people, and eventually professional staff. Through it all, her generosity and exuberance inspired others to join the work. She and her work drew notice locally and nationally, including an award from the White House, induction into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, and several New York Times profiles of Sister Elaine including one titled: “freelancing amid God’s poor in a truly creative spiritual life.”
Most profound, however, was the impact Sister Elaine had on countless individual lives. She spent more than a half-century personally finding people lost in the darkest corners of life, illuminating their unique gifts and human dignity, and kindling in them the self-respect and joyful determination that would sustain them and their families through the struggles ahead.
Providence House has grown and changed much, but we strive to continue in Sister Elaine’s spirit. We are especially grateful for all of you who are likewise committed, remembering Sister Elaine’s own words: “We never thought of Providence House as something we would do alone. You can’t do anything alone. It was something we would do together.”
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Honoring Janet D’Addario
Just prior to Sister Elaine’s passing, the Providence House community lost another of our champions when Janet D’Addario, co-founder of legendary guitar string company D’Addario, died at 72 after battling gallbladder cancer.
After meeting Jim D’Addario in 1966, the husband-and-wife team went on to perform music together and create the D’Addario company in 1973. Best known for their guitar and bass strings, D’Addario has strung countless artists’ fretboards while developing strings for orchestral instruments, reeds and mouthpieces for woodwind instruments, snare wires for drums and more.
Janet D’Addario designed the company’s initial advertising and packaging design before becoming the Head of Artist Relations and co-founding the D’Addario Foundation, which provides music education to underprivileged children. Janet was also deeply involved with Providence House, a charity that provides transitional housing for homeless women and children.
Janet was a tremendous voice for Providence House since being introduced to the organization by Sister Elaine. She served on the Board of Directors, and was instrumental in the opening of a supportive housing residence on K-Street in Brooklyn.
“Providence House is, in so many ways, the very embodiment of my wife… when she saw pain, she wanted to ease it,” Jim D’Addario said. “When she saw hunger, she brought food. When she saw homelessness, she provided shelter. But most importantly when Janet saw someone with no hope, she worked hard to provide them with the tools to restore their will to overcome the challenges they were facing.”
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