Sr. Karen fields dozens of questions a day from the thirty children who come to daycare in the morning at St. Richard’s School in Omaha. Over the years many children have asked her about making toast, because it is their favorite. Sr. Karen always caters to the different tastes of the children, making the toast plain or with jelly or with cinnamon and sugar as they prefer. For some time she smiled when the children told her that she was the best toast-maker in Omaha, thinking they were complimenting her ability to prepare exactly what they wanted. Then she realized that many of these children come from homes where there is no toaster.

Sr. Karen administers the Child and Adult Care Food Program that is available to the day care children at St. Richards. In addition to shopping for and preparing breakfast and snack foods, she also keeps accurate records for the breakfast and afternoon snack. Normally she accomplishes all this in fifteen hours a week, before she returns to the Notre Dame Motherhouse to assume her role as House Coordinator.

The job of House Coordinator can be summed up in one word that is integral to the Notre Dame Sisters: hospitality. Sr. Karen offers hospitality not only to visitors and guests, but to the Notre Dame Sisters as well. A short description of the tasks contained in that include supervising the household, kitchen and maintenance; scheduling meals, liturgies, and celebrations; coordinating the activities at the Motherhouse; purchasing equipment such as appliances; purchasing supplies such as cleaning equipment; refurbishing rooms between occupants; and making sure all the Sisters know what’s going on in the Motherhouse. Sr. Karen puts it best:

“I enjoy fixing things. When we did the renovation and moving of the Sisters’ bedrooms and living rooms (to vacate part of the convent for Seven Oaks) I took special care to see that the furniture, curtains, bedspreads etc. would match as best as possible with what we had to use. We tried to utilize what we had and were able to do so with very few purchases. Working with Teresa, our housekeeper, we refinished several pieces of furniture, sanded and stained many of the windowsills, doors, and chair rails. I feel strongly that God has called me to this ministry at this time in the history of our community, thus using my God given skills that my Dad helped me to learn and appreciate.”