Covenant House
Vancouver
strong
5years
1997-2002
2002|2003 Annual Report
1997
Grand Opening
Sister Mary Rose McGeady, Past President, is joined by a Covenant
House youth and Martha Howlett, Chair, Advisory Committee, at our Grand
Opening in October, 1997.
Covenant House Vancouver celebrated its 5th Anniversary in
October, 2002. In five short years, we purchased and renovated
two buildings, expanded our crisis shelter from 12–22 beds
and added two new programs: L.I.F.E. (Learning for Immediate
and Future Enrichment) and Rights of Passage (ROP).
3
As I write this final Annual Report message
my heart is full of many thoughts and
feelings about these last 13 years. In this
past more than a decade, my life has
been so entwined with this place and this
mission that I hardly know how to think
of and pray over anything else.
It is a time of sadness over a parting, a
time of joy over how our agency has grown
in its service to kids in these years, and
a time of great expectation as we all look
to the future and renewing the covenant
with dynamic new leadership.
As I return to new assignments with my
Congregation, the Daughters of Charity, it
means so much to me to know Covenant
House is being turned over to so impres-
sive a leader as Sister Tricia Cruise, a
Sister of Charity of Cincinnati. Sister Tricia
has been serving three schools in Pine
Ridge, South Dakota, working with kids
who are among the poorest and most
disadvantaged children today and
that speaks volumes to me of her experi-
ence and qualifications as just the
right person to take over here at Covenant
House as I retire.
And while kids on the Reservation may
seem a world away from inner city kids
and the runaways who end up at Covenant
House crisis centers all across North
America, their hurts and needs aren't so
different. I know Sister Tricia will take
wonderful care of all the broken-hearted,
desperate kids who come to us and
make sure we stay true to our mission
and the work God calls us to do.
Someone recently said that what is unique
about