2023 Healy Dinner and Celebration

While on a scholarship from the Sisters of St Francis of Assisi at Cardinal Stritch University, she had planned on concentrating on pre-med, Sr. Tess tried avoiding God’s call, and graduated with a degree in Biology, French and Secondary Education, but God had other plans.   A native of Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, and an U.S. citizen, she is a long-time practitioner in Social Justice Organizing, rooted in Catholic Social Teaching.  As a young religious sister in Milwaukee, founding members and stalwarts of the National Black Sisters Conference, National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus, and Las Hermanas; as well as Church Women United were Tess’ guardian angels and mentors.  She was inspired  and challenged by boycotting farmworkers who through their persistence, perseverance and hope, invited her to leave the classroom, and join them on the picket line in their struggle for dignity and justice.

A founding member of the multi congregational Justice and Peace Center, and on the Migrant Mission of the Wisconsin Council of Churches, Sr. Tess was assigned by the National Farm Worker Ministry as fulltime staff with the United Farm Workers, AFL-CIO in Wisconsin, California and Texas.  She was Director of the National Farm Workers Service Center in San Juan, Texas; and co-coordinated successful legislative campaigns with farmworkers including the banning of  “El Cortito”, the short-handled hoe; and bringing toilets, pesticide protection, and clean drinking water to workers in the fields.  After training, with the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project, farmworkers in Texas, Sr. Tess and others initiated voting rights and policy campaigns.  She was a co-founder of BARCA, the Border Area for Refugees from Central America.  Sister then worked in the Brownsville Diocese in human development, as Bishop J.J. Fitzpatrick and the diocese welcomed Valley Interfaith to the Lower Rio Grande Valley.

Coming to Boston, Sr. Tess organized with the Committee for Boston Public Housing and  residents for the right to self-determination; was statewide Organizing Director for the Mass Action for Women Audit; and coordinated HELP (Healthy Environment Leadership Project) an interfaith environmental justice organizing project at Episcopal Divinity School. She directed St Anthony Cares at Arch Street in JPIC ministry (justice, peace and integrity of creation).  Being a member of the Racial Justice Working Group of the National Council of Churches enkindled her commitment to collaborative ecumenical/interfaith, anti-racist ministry and engagement; which continues through GBIO, of which the Catholic Sisters Collaborative, and St Katharine Drexel Parish were founding members; and through Mass Interfaith Workers Justice, the Boston Labor Guild, the South Asia Worker Center, and Quincy Interfaith Network.  Parishioners and partners of St Katharine Drexel Parish, colleagues, and students in UMass Boston Labor and Gender Studies, and at The Labor Guild, inspire and challenge Sr. Tess to keep on keeping on.

Sr. Tess received a master’s degree from UMass Boston, College of Public and Community Service; and was a Merrill Fellow at Harvard Divinity School. She is eternally grateful to her mom, Dorothea Isabel for her gift of faith, and acting with others for the common good and the wider community. Being a sister of Charity of Nazareth, she tries to live out charity rooted in justice, to care for the earth, and to be in solidarity with oppressed and marginalized persons, especially women and children.