DONNA WILHELM, SSJ-TOSF,
ACTING EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Rev. Dirk Ficca to be
Keynote Speaker at Oct. 15 Annual Meeting
(Cleveland, Sept. 26, 2007)
The board of trustees of InterReligious Partners
in Action of Greater Cleveland (InterAct Cleveland) this week appointed Donna
Wilhelm, ssj-tosf, to be its acting executive director. Trustees appointed
Rabbi Melinda Mersack president of the board in Sr. Donna’s place. Addressing
various fiscal and administrative challenges in the organization’s 15th
anniversary year, the board laid off executive director Jean M. Ohlenbusch in
February 2007 and began an intensive self-study with consultant Janus Small
Associates regarding InterAct Cleveland’s programs, mission, and future. The
study is drawing to a conclusion and a search is now underway for a permanent
executive director as well as a part-time, temporary coordinator for the February
2008 Homeless Stand Down.
“It has been a privilege to labor
side-by-side with the extremely dedicated staff and board of InterAct
throughout this strenuous process, and I look forward to our continued progress
in interreligious volunteerism and dialogue for the benefit of our constituents
and the Greater Cleveland community,” commented Sr. Donna on accepting the
post. Rabbi Mersack praised Sr. Donna for “selfless, hands-on leadership that
set an example for the entire board” while maintaining InterAct Cleveland’s
programs and services during a shortage of human and financial resources: “As
we now get ready for our annual meeting, our Thanksgiving Celebration, and the
Homeless Stand Down, it is essential that Donna have this capacity to manage
our day-to-day work and our relationships with supporters and volunteers.”
Sr. Donna joined the InterAct board
in 2004 and began her tenure as president in 2006. Rabbi Mersack is finishing
her second three-year term as trustee and has chaired the board development
committee.
15th
Anniversary Year Culminates in Annual Meeting Featuring the Rev. Dirk Ficca
The
Rev. Dirk Ficca, executive director of the Chicago-based Council for a
Parliament of the World’s Religions (CPWR), will deliver the keynote address at
InterAct Cleveland’s 2007 annual meeting on Monday, Oct. 15, at 7–9 p.m. All
are invited and welcome to attend. The meeting will also include election of
trustees and presentation of the results of InterAct Cleveland’s self-study and
its plans for the organization’s future. The venue this year is the Church of
the Covenant in University Circle,
11205 Euclid Ave.
at Cornell Rd.
Attended parking is available.
CPWR’s mission is “to cultivate
harmony among the world’s religious and spiritual communities and foster their
engagement with the world and its other guiding institutions in order to achieve
a peaceful, just, and sustainable world.” It originated in the 1980s with the
centennial celebration of the World’s Parliament of Religions convened during
the 1893 Columbian Exposition—an event recognized as the birth of formal
interreligious dialogue worldwide. While in Cleveland, Rev. Ficca will promote InterAct
Cleveland’s participation in CPWR’s Partner City Network—a worldwide network of
metropolitan centers in which interreligious encounter and dialogue are valued
and promoted.
For additional information about InterAct
Cleveland, call (216) 241-0230 or e-mail
,
or visit www.interactcleveland.org.
For more information about the CPWR, visit www.cpwr.org.
InterAct Cleveland Background
InterAct
Cleveland dates to the mid-1970s when its predecessor, the Euclid University
Cluster of Religious Institutions, organized to provide hunger relief to the
residents of the Hough, Fairfax, and University Circle neighborhoods. The
Cluster incorporated as East Side Interfaith Ministries (ESIM) in October 1991
in recognition of the fact that hunger programs alone could not effect
significant change. In October 1999, ESIM celebrated its eighth birthday by
becoming InterReligious Partners in
Action of Greater Cleveland, or InterAct Cleveland for short.
The membership of InterAct Cleveland has grown to nearly seventy
congregations, religious communities, campus organizations, and partners. They
come from Baha’i, Christian, Hindu, Islamic, Jewish, Sikh, and Unitarian
Universalist traditions, and include secular partners who share InterAct
Cleveland’s values. Its principal programs have been the Community Food Pantry,
a Congregate Meals Program, the Homeless Stand Down, the Partners
in Action Mentoring and Friends Programs, interreligious dialogues for clergy
and laypersons, interreligious worship experiences such as the annual
Thanksgiving Celebration, and an anniversary series of visits to places of
worship.
For the launch of InterAct’s 15th anniversary in October 2006, the
Cleveland Clinic hosted a dedication of the Community Food Pantry recently
relocated to a Clinic-owned building. Later that month, Anshe Chesed
Fairmount Temple
hosted the anniversary benefit “InterActions: Being the Difference,” honoring interreligious
leaders in Greater Cleveland.
Biography of Donna Wilhelm, ssj-tosf
Sr. Donna is a Roman
Catholic Franciscan sister, a member of the congregation of the Sisters of St.
Joseph of the Third Order of St. Francis. She began her professional career in
education at the secondary level and has experience teaching at the college
level as well. Sister Donna has served in parish ministry as a director of religious
education and as a pastoral minister. She has developed and administered
cooperative programming among various churches and has procured funding and
initiated ongoing educational opportunities within the African-American
Catholic community in Cleveland.
Sr. Donna has served on the advisory board for Religious
Education in the Diocese of Venice, Fla. She is among the coauthors of a
religious formation process for the Sisters of Notre Dame of Cleveland, and has published articles in the
area of religious formation.She has
acted as department chair for the theology departments in three different
Catholic high schools.
Sr. Donna is an accomplished urban educator and has most
recently served on the theology faculty at Cleveland Central
Catholic High
School. She also has experience in campus ministry,
has given retreats, and maintains a spiritual direction practice at the Franciscan Center
in Garfield Heights, Ohio. She is a member of the Social Justice
Fund Committee of the Sisters of St. Joseph, Third Order of Saint Francis, a
group that awards grants nationally to nonprofit entities whose efforts focus
on peace and justice. She is a member of the Franciscan Federation of Congregations
of Third Order Regular and in 2005 was a presenter at its annual meeting.
She holds a master’s degree in theology from the University of Dayton
and in spirituality from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.
She earned a B.S. in biological sciences from Notre Dame College of Ohio. Sr.
Donna has received advanced training in religious education and was awarded
certification in spiritual direction from the Franciscan Internship Program in Toronto.
###
InterReligious Partners
in Action of Greater Cleveland (InterAct Cleveland) promotes mutual
understanding and appreciation of diverse religious beliefs and practices, as
well as discovery of the values and beliefs shared by many faith traditions.
InterAct members actively engage with one another to help shape positive
responses to the challenges and opportunities facing Greater Cleveland,
including religious diversity itself. (Revised mission statement adopted 2007.)
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