Sisters were busy this election season to Get Out the Vote. Across the province, sisters could be found serving as polling place chaplains, providing rides to the polls and organizing prayer services.

Sister Barbara Pfarr had the unique opportunity to live out her values of faith, community and social justice as a participant with Nuns on the Bus. Nuns on the Bus & Friends is a multi-state bus tour that calls “on Catholics and people of goodwill to be multi-issue voters for the common good.” The Bus and its riders of sisters and secular partners helped energize, mobilize and share resources with participants along its path. Sister Barbara rode the bus October 5-9, 2024, on a leg that ran from Pittsburgh to Chicago, and included a special stop at Mount Mary University in Milwaukee, a sponsored ministry of the School Sisters of Notre Dame (SSND).

In the United States, National Vocation Awareness Week (NVAW) is celebrated each November, this year from November 3-9, 2024. This special week is a time to highlight and promote vocations to ordained ministry and consecrated life and to renew our prayers and support for those who are considering a vocation.

The School Sisters of Notre Dame (SSND) North American Vocation Team (NAVT), serves the congregation in the U.S. and Canada by promoting a culture of vocation, with an understanding that we are all called by God to continue the mission of Jesus.

Since 1833, SSND have welcomed women “drawn to our way of life,” seeking to dedicate their lives to God, to commit to a charism of oneness and to transform the world through education. The doors are still open!

As jack-o'-lanterns are pulled from front porches and the calendar flips a page to November, thoughts turn to the season’s next big holiday, Thanksgiving. Just as important as the turkey and pumpkin pie, Thanksgiving reminds us to take a moment to recognize all that we have to be grateful for. Whether 2024 has brought a monumental moment that will forever standout in your memory, or smaller, quieter sparks of gratitude, each is worth recognizing and celebrating.

In that spirit, one of our School Sister of Notre Dame (SSND) associates, Pat DeBill, offers a few of her thoughts on gratitude and what she has learned about thankfulness from her 45 years of working alongside sisters.