News from Catholic Extension


December 2009

  • Crookston's Tekakwitha Center to Receive $10,000 Grant from Catholic Extension
    Posted: 12/16/2009
    The Tekakwitha Center will receive a $10,000 grant from the Catholic Church Extension Society, the Chicago-based organization announced today. The funds will be used to support the salary of Darlene Ballard, the Director of Religious Education in the Native American ministry.

    Catholic Extension officials cite Ms. Ballard's passionate commitment to the Center, her devotion to teaching community members over the course of the past year and the need to educate adults in the diocese as motivating factors for Bishop Michael Hoeppner's funding request for this ministry.

    Located in northwestern Minnesota's Crookston Diocese, the Tekakwitha Center is an organization that trains religious education instructors for six local parishes, of which are part of the White Earth Reservation. The only program of its kind on the reservation, Tekakwitha seeks to provide religious education to adults in order that they may be better equipped to pass on strong religious training to their children and grandchildren.

    "The Tekakwitha Center needs a committed director who can effectively manage its religious education efforts to foster and nurture the developing faith in this Native American ministry," said Joseph Boland, Grants Director for Catholic Extension. "This grant will help Ms. Ballard continue doing good work for the community and help educate the next generation of Catholics within the Diocese of Crookston."

    The grant is one of more than 800 Catholic Extension will award this year to faith communities across the U.S. and its territories. Last year the organization invested $18 million in America's 84 "mission dioceses," geographic regions comprising the poorest, most underserved and isolated areas in the U.S. It was able to do so through contributions from nearly 50,000 individual donors who share Catholic Extension's commitment to support people of many ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds who do not have easy access to the Church and its many services.

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