‘Like a ministry to me’: Catholic Charities leader first layperson to receive Valenzano Award

Firmly established in academia, Mary Anne O’Donnell left what is now Notre Dame of Maryland University in 1996 for a position with Catholic Charities of Baltimore that included supervising Sarah’s House, then a shelter for women and children on Fort Meade.

Was that a culture shock, trading a serene campus in north Baltimore for a barracks-like facility on a military establishment in Anne Arundel County?

“The transition was not as hard as I thought it might be,” O’Donnell said. “I saw it as people being people, with different needs, skills, backgrounds and potential.”

There is irony in that last quality as O’Donnell becomes the first lay recipient of  the Monsignor Arthur F. Valenzano Joyful Servant Award, which honors the memory of a priest of the Archdiocese of Baltimore who served on the Board of Trustees of Catholic Charities and recognizes “a joyful life and spirit in service.”

Past recipients include School Sister of Notre Dame Kathleen Feeley, the NDMU president emeritus who made O’Donnell consider her own potential during their time together in the early 1990s.

“When I left high school, I would not have considered myself a leader at all,” O’Donnell said, of the early 1970s. “I was just very low key, kind of a participant. She (Sister Kathleen) recognized things in me. She was my boss, my coach, my mentor.”

Recalling her first impressions of O’Donnell, Sister Kathleen said, “Without trying, she would be a role model. … Her natural leadership skills flowered. Her five years of leadership at Notre Dame strengthened her and the institution, and led her into her future.”

At Catholic Charities, Maryland’s largest provider of social services, O’Donnell spent six years as a senior administrator; eight as director of its Community Services Division; and the last six as assistant director and chief administration officer. 

She developed employment programs; was in on the proverbial ground floor of the Our Daily Bread facility on the Fallsway, a signature mission of the agency; and has managed everything from human resources to IT – all with a touch that recalls a key phrase in Catholic Charities’ mission statement, “Cherish the Divine Within.”

“She doesn’t look at anyone as being beneath her,” said Robin Johnson, who has spent 16 years at My Sister’s Place, a shelter near the Catholic Center downtown. “I was a program assistant when I first met her, and wondered, ‘Why does she know my name?’ She makes a point of getting to know everyone.

“That approach has influenced me. I see people coming to the door as my mother, my sister.”

Roots in Philadelphia suburb 

Her own mother and religious women beyond Sister Kathleen were formative influences on O’Donnell, an only child whose father died unexpectedly when she was 3.

“My mother (Anne Englebert O’Donnell) was a strong, independent woman with a great faith, who taught me from day one the importance of giving to others,” O’Donnell said. “You don’t just go to church on Sunday. It’s what you do during the week.”

Her mother was one of O’Donnell’s CYO basketball coaches at St. Katharine of Siena in Wayne, Pa., where the discipline and purpose taught by the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary dovetailed nicely with her home environment.

“I always had a list (from her mother) on the refrigerator when I came home from school: throw in a load of laundry, do this, do that, get your homework done,” O’Donnell said. “And, ‘have fun every day.’ I got those kind of letters every day in college, that at the end said, ‘Have fun.’”

That philosophy brightened the lives of students she led at St. Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Ind., and Alfred University in New York, the only job she ever had that did not involve a Catholic institution. 

Coming to NDMU in 1990 as dean of students, O’Donnell learned managerial balance from Sister Kathleen.

“The first week I was there, we went into the auditorium for an event and the guy who sets up the audio-visual wasn’t there,” O’Donnell said. “Sister Kathleen showed me how to do that. She said, ‘information is power,’ and she’s right. You need to find things out, investigate, have all the information.

“Sister Kathleen was a visionary and strategic thinker, but then she let people do their jobs. She didn’t micromanage.”

O’Donnell also carried the sentiments of NDMU students when she moved on: “I remember students saying, ‘I’m really sorry you’re leaving, but I’m really glad you’re going to help people who really need help, not those of us who think we do.’”

SSND lay associate

O’Donnell has familiarized herself with the tenuous circumstances of those in need of a meal, a job, housing or counseling – and how to provide those services. That institutional knowledge was among the reasons William J. McCarthy Jr., the executive director of Catholic Charities, asked O’Donnell six years ago to take on her current role. 

It does not surprise McCarthy that O’Donnell became a lay associate of the School Sisters of Notre Dame.

“She always understands why we do what we do. … That’s always been her North Star,” McCarthy said, of a mindset that contributed to one blurry exchange. “We were meeting the mayor at City Hall, and one of the guards asked Mary Anne, ‘You’re a sister, right?’ She said yes. Mary Anne thought she was asking about My Sister’s Place.” 

O’Donnell is segueing into a part-time role with Catholic Charities of Baltimore, as project manager of its “Centennial Celebration,” which will run from 2021 through 2023. 

Whatever the role, O’Donnell does it with a substantial dose of spirit.

“In my whole 44 years of work, whether it was with college students or here, I’ve never felt like I was getting up to go to a job,” O’Donnell said. “It’s always been like a ministry to me and how I’m kind of living out my faith every day.”

Valenzano Award recipients:

2016: Father William Watters, S.J.

2017: Sister Kathleen Feeley, S.S.N.D.

2018: Bishop Denis J. Madden

2019: Sister Helen Amos, R.S.M.

2020: Mary Anne O’Donnell

Email Paul McMullen at pmcmullen@CatholicReview.org 

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