Oblate Serves Recently Incarcerated Women

When Renée Roosa became an oblate of Mount St. Scholastica in 2023, she began searching for a way to live out the call stated in the “Oblate Prayer” to “be models in our … communities of dignified human labor … [and] constant witness of justice, compassion, and hope to all.”

Renée, who is a Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES) and a Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP), is well aware of a 1968 statement by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhumane!” Renée says, “As a Black child growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, along with my family and community, I experienced the injustice of health care disparities. Therefore, it is not a cognitive stretch for me to recognize marginalization and health disparities as systemic injustices.”

After discerning with Sisters Therese Elias, Gabrielle Kocour, Barbara McCracken, and Esther Fangman at the Mount, Renée chose to work with women who are newly released from incarceration. She connected with collaborators who either volunteer or work at the Journey to New Life program in Kansas City, Missouri, which serves recently incarcerated women. Renée developed a program featuring
a revolving 8-week curriculum that focuses on women’s health literacy, self advocacy, and stress management. She has enjoyed collaborating with other volunteers, particularly Karim Memi Stamati, who leads Qigong (healing movement) sessions to enhance the integration of mind-body wellness.

The Mount sisters have a special history with the Journey to New Life program. Some of the women in the program are housed in a building called Peace House, the residence where sisters who worked in Kansas City once lived. In 1969, Renée graduated from Lillis High School, which was staffed by Benedictine sisters and is directly across from Peace House; thus the high school education that started her on the path to becoming a health care provider has now come full circle in her new ministry.

In March 2024, Renée presented the concept of her health education project at the 2024 Society of Public Health Educators National Conference. The theme of the conference was Global Solutions to Strengthen Health Education and Promotion Capacity.

“I believe my calling to the Benedictine oblate life helped me to fulfill an opportunity to serve my local neighborhood community. As a CHES and an FNP, I am prepared to lend a helping hand to a group of marginalized community members who might lack the means to achieve the maximal healthy years lived.”

Renee