We welcome you to donate to our Charitable Grants Program or our free clinic in Palenque. Please see more info below.
Charitable Grants Program
Nonprofit organizations rely on grants, donations, and volunteers to support their missions. Every year, we award up to twenty-five $10,000-$15,000 grants to organizations sharing our values. Sisters and Associates vet all of our applicants prior to sending grant applications.
Through this program, we are honored to support visionary organizations supporting individuals and families experiencing crises including food and housing insecurity, lack of access to childcare, eldercare and healthcare, human trafficking, violence, incarceration, discrimination, alienation, and environmental injustice. We also support organizations dedicated to the arts. Over the lifespan of this program, we've contributed to hundreds of organizations across the country and tens of thousands of people.
By donating to this grants program, you can support a vetted organization directly. The Sisters cover all administrative fees so that 100% of your funds go directly to our deserving grantees.
St. Clare’s Family Clinic in Palenque, Mexico
In the Palenque area, 85-90% lack access to medical services due to increasing privatization, cost of services, and a shortage of local professional healthcare providers. As a result, there's only one 30-bed public hospital in the Palenque area and it regularly operates without basic medical supplies and equipment we take for granted in the United States. In addition, the hospital staff are often under trained to meet the variety of healthcare challenges of the community.
Due to this largely unmet basic need, the Sisters are trained as nurses so that they can incorporate healthcare into the support they provide in the city and surrounding villages. Critical to their care are twice yearly medical missions from the United States serving over 1,000 of the most remote villagers per week. With the encouragement of the visiting doctors, nurses and dentists, the Sisters raised funds to purchase a "Clinic-in-a-Can" (https://clinicinacan.com/) to increase the number of people served through primary care, radiological, lab, and minor surgical services.
At this point, a staff of eleven, including licensed medical professionals, a social worker, psychologist and land and facility managers to serve up to 50 people per day within regular operations. Within the next year, after constructing a surgical suite and rehabilitation center, we will serve an average of 70 people per day who otherwise could not afford or access medical care, including those in need of baby delivery. The Sisters also raised funds to grow organic vegetables as well as herbs for natural remedies.
What is the Franciscan Way?
Do you value the dignity of each person? (Reverence)
Is protection of the environment important to you? (Care for Creation)
Are you able to share your own resources with others? (Generosity)
Do you strive for harmonious relations and justice? (Peace)
Are you able to acknowledge your own needs to others? (Simplicity)
Are you committed to the common good? (Service)
Do you believe in the basic goodness of life? (Joy)
Do you nurture an attitude of wonder toward a higher power, others, and creation? (Contemplation)
If you answered, ‘yes’, to one or more of the above, you are already walking the Franciscan Way and there are companions joyously awaiting you.