Using All Her Talents to Benefit the Poor
Kathleen Shea
Katie, the name by which she is known by her family and friends--is a member of Holy Trinity Catholic Church, a Jesuit parish in Georgetown, and it is there where she first heard about Ignatian Volunteer Corps (IVC), joining the organization about a year after her retirement.”
Trained as a lawyer, Katie looks back on a full career embracing both the public sector—the Atomic Energy Commission and the U.S. Mission to the European Communities in Brussels—and the private sector, where she represented electric utilities applying for licenses to build and operate nuclear power plants. As she inimitably says: “It takes a lot of lawyers to build and operate a nuclear power plant.”
Katie’s legal background has been put to good use in her IVC ministries. Examples include an extensive evaluation of a program conducted by the Jesuit Refugee Service and work for the University Legal Services (ULS), a type of pro bono law firm, representing people with disabilities who are seeking rehabilitation training under a federally-funded program administered by the DC government. Kathleen found her work with ULS very satisfying, but admits that she was “unable to resist trying to solve all the problems of [her] clients.” For this reason she decided to get out of “direct service” and work primarily in the “back room” operations of the Capital Area Food Bank, an organization which distributes about 20 million pounds of food each year to needy residents of the Washington Metropolitan area.
For the past four years, Kathleen has been involved in helping the Food Bank with various issues relating to fundraising—identifying potential donors, both individuals and foundations, and drafting grant proposals, valuable work for the long-term benefit of any non-profit organization. Katie still has opportunities, however, to “get into the trenches.” For example, she has participated in the Food Bank’s distribution of food at a Baptist church in the Anacostia area of southeast DC, where she says that the most obvious characteristic of the people receiving food is “unfailing politeness and frequent expressions of religious faith. I have never been blessed so many times in such short order.” Katie had the opportunity of meeting the pastor of that Baptist church and commented to him that few of her friends or neighbors in northwest DC have ever been to southeast DC, and he responded in turn that many of the people in his neighborhood have never been to northwest DC either. In light of that observation, she lamented, “We are two separate cities in many ways. And that, unfortunately, is symptomatic of problems in our society.”
Katie reports that one of the unexpected pleasures of volunteering is working with warm, wonderful, dedicated people, both employees and other volunteers. They too are concerned with “doing good” and do not seek large financial rewards. Regarding colleagues at the Food Bank, she says, "Many of my colleagues are just out of college and/or trying to decide which graduate degree to pursue. They treat me as a peer, not a ‘little old lady.’ It's wonderful!
