A co-sponsored ministry of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM), and the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas (RSM), working to alleviate the impacts of poverty while fostering human dignity and self-sufficiency in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Friends of the Poor and Catherine McAuley Center (FOTP/CMC) came to life on August 1, 2025, as the result of a merger between two separately incorporated social service ministries, the Friends of the Poor and the Catherine McAuley Center, both headquartered in Scranton, PA.
In 1984, Sr. Anne Paye, RSM replicated Catherine’s model and opened the spare bedrooms of the home she shared with her fellow sisters to women and children experiencing homelessness. From this the Catherine McAuley Center was born, a nonprofit ministry sponsored by the (now) Sisters of Mercy of the Americas.
In 1986, Sr. Adrian Barrett, IHM returned to her hometown of Scranton after living out of state for many years and was astounded by the extreme poverty in our streets. Often referred to as “Sister Sneakers”, Sr. Adrian had a gift for bringing the community together and getting things done. Her solution was an agency that would bring together in friendship those who have the desire to give with those in need of assistance. From this the Friends of the Poor was born, a nonprofit ministry sponsored by the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Catherine McAuley recognized the many needs of people who were economically poor in early nineteenth-century Ireland and determined that she and women like her could make a difference.
Spending her inheritance, she opened the first House of Mercy on Lower Baggot Street in Dublin, Ireland, on September 24, 1827, as a place to shelter and educate women and girls. Catherine’s original intention was to assemble a lay corps of Catholic social workers. Impressed by her good works and the importance of continuity in the ministry, the Archbishop of Dublin advised her to establish a religious congregation.
On December 12, 1831, Catherine and two companions became the first Sisters of Mercy. In the ten years between the founding and her death, she established 14 independent foundations in Ireland and England.
Theresa Maxis Duchemin recognized the educational needs of French Catholic immigrants and women of color in nineteenth-century America and determined that she and women like her could make a difference despite the racial barriers of her time.
In 1829 at age 19, she became a founding member of the Oblate Sisters of Providence in Baltimore, the first permanent community of Black Catholic sisters in the United States. Then, in 1845, seeking to expand educational opportunities for French immigrants, she later collaborated with Father Louis Florent Gillet to establish the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Monroe, Michigan.
Despite facing exile and separation from her congregation due to conflicts with church hierarchy, her foundations flourished and became the great IHM communities of the East, with missions in Pennsylvania that continue her educational legacy today.