IVC NE Pennsylvania’s 2024 Evening of Gratitude Ceremony

Ignatian Volunteer Corps NE Pennsylvania’s
2024 Evening of Gratitude

March 14, 2024
6:00pm – 8:00pm
Scranton Preparatory School
1000 Wyoming Ave., Scranton PA 18509
Bellarmine Theater
Register Here

This year, IVC NE Pennsylvania will honor Pat McMahon with the Madonna Della Strada Award. The Madonna Della Strada Award is named after the first church that Ignatius and the early Jesuits obtained to meet the needs of Rome’s underserved, the Sancta Maria Della Strada. Pat is IVC NEPA’s visionary and its first shepherd, organizing a planning committee and raising resources to bring IVC NEPA to life. Pat continues to serve as the chairperson on our IVC NEPA Advisory Council and as a Court Appointed Special Advocate “CASA” with Lackawanna County’s CASA program.

Denny and Grace Dawgert will receive our IVC Spirituality Award. As a community rooted in Jesuit principles, the IVC Spirituality Award honors individuals demonstrating what it means to live committed to on-going reflection. Grace and Denny, as IVC NEPA’s monthly meeting animators, create an environment conducive to allowing us to discern our gifts and deepest passions to inform our actions so that we may fully engage our call to serve in the world.

Finally, we will honor United Neighborhood Centers, NeighborWorks of Northeastern Pennsylvania and our IVC Members serving as CARE Callers for the past four years with the IVC Community Award. The IVC Community Award honors individuals and organizations that demonstrate compassion, freely share their uniqueness, and humbly learn from one another while opening themselves to life-giving relationships and appreciate the sacredness at the heart of our interactions and interdependence. From our first call on April 14, 2000 to today, over 23 IVC members made over 5,000 telephone calls to older people in our community, with IVC members Matt Bass, Neil Donahue, Gloria Jablonski and Marueen Finnerty making over two-thirds of these calls. In total, CARE Callers provided more than 1682 hours of service on the telephone, that’s over 70 days, in addition to navigating and resolving caller issues ranging from immediate home health assistance to the selling of a family home and relocating to a long-term care facility to delivering coffee cakes, French dinner rolls, wimpies and sending a myriad of holiday, anniversary, get well and birthday cards.