In its first year of partnership with IVC San Diego, St. Madeleine Sophie’s Center in El Cajon has already become a place of meaningful connection and impact. IVC Member Marianne Zundel serves as the Garden Volunteer, helping to create a welcoming and accessible environment for the individuals served there.
St. Madeleine Sophie’s Center (SMSC) is dedicated to educating and empowering individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities to realize their full potential. Through innovative programs that combine creativity, practical skills development, and a culture of care, SMSC provides opportunities for lifelong learning, employment, and dignity.
This year marks the beginning of IVC San Diego’s partnership with SMSC, and already that collaboration is bearing fruit – quite literally.
As the Garden Volunteer, Marianne Zundel has played a key role in restoring one of the campus’s most beloved spaces. According to Volunteer Coordinator Farah Awad, “Marianne has brought life back to our garden, our clients’ favorite spot out of the entire campus. Her tremendous work brings hope to employees and joy to our clients.”
Through Marianne’s steady care and attention, pathways have been cleared and gathering areas made more usable, allowing clients to experience the garden as a place of beauty, relaxation, and connection.
For Marianne, however, the heart of her experience lies not only in the physical transformation of the space, but in the relationships formed there.
“The clients’ welcoming comments and smiles – that is the best,” she shares. “They don’t even know you and they will want to say hi and talk to you.”
These daily interactions, both simple and profound, have shaped her understanding of what it means to accompany others. “The most meaningful interactions are often those found in an unexpected sharing,” Marianne reflects. “It can be anything from talking to a client who I was told rarely speaks – and then finding him engaged in conversation – to someone who told me about his childhood accident which left him with brain damage.”
Moments like these reveal not only the challenges faced by those at SMSC, but also their resilience and openness. Marianne recalls being especially moved by a client’s “positive attitude and acceptance of life’s challenges,” noting that such encounters have given her “cause to pause.”
Even small gestures, like a greeting as clients arrive each morning, carry deep meaning. “Often it is just the warm welcome that clients greet you with as they come off the bus,” she says. And while much of her work happens quietly in the garden, its impact does not go unnoticed. “Occasionally, staff will come up and thank me for making the place more beautiful and more usable.”
Marianne also finds that her experience as an IVC Member deepens her sense of purpose. “I am grateful for the opportunity to see how others are living out their faith both inside and outside of their volunteer experiences,” she says. “This experience has been grounding and normalizing, and I appreciate my peers’ prayerful commitment to those they serve.”
As IVC San Diego continues to grow its partnership with St. Madeleine Sophie’s Center, Marianne’s presence offers a powerful reminder: transformation often begins in simple acts of care: tending a garden, sharing a conversation, or offering a moment of welcome. Through these small but meaningful encounters, spaces are renewed, relationships are formed, and dignity is affirmed.
