For more information, contact Debbi Della Porta Director of Communication, Mid-Atlantic Community 515 Montgomery Avenue Merion Station, PA 19066 610-664-6650, extension 527 [email protected]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Sisters of Mercy Lease Local Seminarian Residence

The Sisters of Mercy – Mid-Atlantic Community have leased the former

seminarian residence at 2204 Parsons Boulevard in Whitestone, NY, from the

Redemptorists of the Province.

The St. Alphonsus Formation Residence will become a Convent of Mercy

where 30 senior Sisters of Mercy from Brooklyn, Long Island, and other parts of

New York will live.

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Last year, the Redemptorists moved their 20 students and nine formation staff members from the Whitestone property to the rectory at

Immaculate Conception Church, a Redemptorist parish in the Bronx. Also last year, the Sisters of Mercy began looking for a suitable residence for some of their senior sisters.

“The Parsons Boulevard location offers an ideal convent residence for our older sisters. The building has a beautiful chapel and simple, but lovely rooms and common areas. The locale has green open space, ample parking, and is centrally located in the New York area where our sisters have ministered for many years.

We are pleased to have developed this relationship with the Redemptorists,” says Sister Christine McCann, RSM, the President of the Mid-Atlantic Community of the Sisters of Mercy.

“We are delighted to enter into this partnership with the Sisters of Mercy in the Mid-Atlantic Community,” says Very Reverend Patrick Woods, Provincial

Superior of the Baltimore Province.“ The Sisters plan to use the building as an assisted living residence for members of their community. The women who will be living there have served the Lord and His Church with great devotion.”

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“The number of residents will remain the same in the building, but there will be some additional support staff,” says Sister Anna Marie Tag, RSM, the

Mid-Atlantic Community’s director of retirement who is coordinating the renovations to the building. “We plan to keep the exterior of the building the same. Over the next four to five months, we also will make the building more handicap-accessible and add two elevators, so sisters with mobility challenges can easily move from floor to floor.”

The Mid-Atlantic Community has hired two New York City based firms: Janet

Duggan and Associates (JD&A) as project manager, and Murphy, Burnham, &

Buttrick (MB&B) as architects for the renovations of the residence. Sisters of Mercy serve on a task force to review plans for the renovations of the residence and the chapel.

“The Redemptorists are grateful that what has been a sacred space for us since we purchased the property in the late 1980s will continue to have a special mission in the Church. In particular, we are happy that the beautiful chapel will continue to serve as a worship site, “says Father Woods.

The Sisters of Mercy are an international religious community of Roman

Catholic women who help people who are poor, sick, and in need of education, especially women and children. In the Mid-Atlantic Community — which encompasses the states of New York, New Jersey, and —

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more than 1,000 sisters and 900 associates continue the work of Catherine

McAuley, the foundress of the Sisters of Mercy, by committing their lives and resources to helping people in need and changing unjust systems.

Sisters from the Mid-Atlantic Community serve in ministries in 25 states and in Africa, Europe, and South America by helping people in need and serving them with Mercy and compassion. For more information about the Sisters of

Mercy, Mid-Atlantic Community, visit www.mercymidatlantic.org.

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