Associate Spotlight – Beth Dennis, Dominican Sisters of Peace

Fifth Grade teacher Beth Dennis seems to have found the perfect outlet for living out her commitment as a Dominican Associate. 

Her classroom at St Pius X Catholic school in Loudonville, NY is the setting where she talks to students about the values of Dominican Life and leads by example.

Hers is an integrated classroom where she touches the lives of children who are all very different from each other. She instructs in language arts but is also a special education and arts teacher. 

One day Beth’s lesson may be on developing empathy by introducing the children to a book about a young girl who is dying. The project produced student-made bird art in the form of cranes that carry students’ prayers inside them.

The next focus might be on adoration, creating pocket altars in class. And, when the children see Beth’s plan to buy coats for children in need and the homeless, they really get the message of giving with joy.

Beth’s commitment to live a life guided by Dominican principles was influenced by her mother, also an associate.  “I really got deeper into my faith and decided to become an associate because I saw how my mother put Dominican principals into action and gave very selflessly to others.”

For Beth, living as a Dominican Associate is a prayerful and mindful process. She hopes she can influence young people, and that it can be passed along to the rest of the community, too.

In a podcast with the Diocese of Albany, New York, she talked about how she also learns just as much from her students. During the discussion, she talked about how the children inspire her to pray, to learn more about God and to take a moment – as she needs it – to ask for God’s help.

Beth is one of 600+ Associates of the Dominican Sisters of Peace, a diverse group that includes a variety of ages, faith traditions and geographies. The common thread among them all is the Dominican charism of prayer, study, service and community, and how they share these gifts with those around them.

Sister Spotlight – Dominican Sisters of Peace in Jamaica

This way to Jamaica….

A story’s beginning may not be the most earth-shattering part of the tale.
But it can affect how the story evolves and can influence the ending. It does that in this story. 

This story begins with Sister Gene Poore, OP, a Dominican Sister of Peace who has played an integral part in the Congregation’s ministry in Jamaica.

 
She has been responsible for leading educational efforts and the Jamaican Outreach Collaborative – a group of organizations working to empower people living on the margins in Kingston, Jamaica.  A large part of the Collaborative’s focus is on 3,500 people living on the edge of a landfill in the Riverton Meadows Community. Other efforts target neighborhood groups and “Mustard Seed Homes” that house children with disabilities.

Trying to meet the needs of Jamaicans who are faced with violence, poverty, low educational levels, unemployment, poor parental guidance, and a lack of recreational facilities, has been a non-stop effort.

In 2015, Sr. Gene’s leadership efforts within the Jamaican Outreach Collaborative led to the creation of the Riverton Youth Center – which is actually a repurposed shipping container turned community hub that stands tall in the landfill area.

The Center is a safe haven for children, a place for homework help, games, and meetings. Over time, the young Jamaican members of the Youth Group have become leaders in another initiative- the LEAD Program (Leadership, Empowerment, Action and Development) and now these young Jamaican adults are overseeing children in the summer youth program. 

Sr. Gene’s first missionary trip happened in 1992 when she served in the summer program there. Her continued involvement became clear when she saw a portrait of St. Dominic. “I stayed at St. Theresa’s Convent when I first got involved, and in the dining room there was a framed picture of Saint Dominic raising a child to life. The longer I was in Jamaica the more symbolic that picture became to me. The idea of raising a child back to life or giving them hope became equated with the worth of the summer program in Jamaica and doing what is needed to have it continue.”   

To that end, Sr. Gene has helped raise donations and write grants for the youth programs for many years from her desk in Columbus, Ohio.  But she still travels back to the island country to oversee the activities of the Jamaican ministry. As important, her enthusiasm has led other Sisters and Associates to become connected to the Jamaican ministry.

Sr. Ana Gonzalez is one of those Sisters. She was a novice when she first went to Jamaica in 2016 for an immersion experience. She was deeply affected by what she saw there and continues to return to offer her time and artistic talents to the people of the island nation.

“I thought I knew poverty, growing up in Mexico – but with each situation I saw, it felt like punches in the gut… Despite what appears to be hopelessness, the individuals I have seen are joyful, have dreams for a better life — and that feeling was loud and massive at the landfill.”

“The Sisters who participate in the outreach support each other on the island too. Our conversations many times conclude with, ‘God is always part of everything that is happening, God is always in the picture.’ The experiences have been powerful.”                           

For the past two years, Sr Ana has returned to Jamaica as a graduate assistant for the volunteer and learning service center at Boston College, bringing a group of students with her. The young Sister is not only keeping her involvement alive and active, but she is also influencing the next generation.

“It is amazing what the college students learn and retain from a trip to Jamaica. You can teach a student only so much with what is in a book – by making the trip, seeing what is happening and getting involved, they too were transformed by their experiences.”

Sr. Gene will be going back this summer and always looks forward to seeing the evidence of transformation for those participating in the youth program.

“Within the LEAD program, we now have about 50 young people who are 12-18 years of age. They are learning to write a resume, preparing for job interviews and learning how to be leaders. The young people are doing more than just playing games – they are developing skills.”

And, for Sr. Gene, every trip takes her back to the portrait she saw decades ago, “Young people who may have once felt complete despair, can envision a new way of living, through their own efforts at the Youth Center. We provide the tools they need to get them going, but what is so rewarding is that they are doing the work needed to send them in a new direction and create hope for a new life.”

Call to Action – Justice for Immigrants

Right now, members of the Senate are considering the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” a budget reconciliation bill passed by the House of Representatives in May. This sweeping piece of legislation covers many different areas, including immigration. Before the bill passed in the House, several bishop chairmen of the USCCB wrote to Congress to commend certain provisions and to urge reconsideration of others that would irreparably harm the poor and disadvantaged, as well as our immigrant brothers and sisters.  

In the context of immigration, some of the things the House-passed bill would do include:  

  • Allocate $25 billion for immigration enforcement efforts and $45 billion for detention, including family detention. This amounts to a nearly 400% increase annually when compared to current funding levels. Families, including those with young children, would be left to languish in costly and harmful detention facilities. Enforcement efforts would be expanded well beyond those who committed crimes to include people who have peacefully contributed to American communities for years, even decades.
  • Provide $100 million to facilitate the expedited removal of unaccompanied children without any access to legal counsel, overriding current protections for this population.
  • Impose prohibitive fees for families seeking to reunite with an unaccompanied child. Family members and other safe sponsors would first be required to pay a $3,500 fee as “reimbursement” for the time a child spent in federal custody, as well as a $5,000 bond, before being able to care for that child. This combined $8,500 would keep many children from their families and increase costs for the government to continue caring for them.
  • Make life-saving protections contingent on one’s ability to pay for them without any potential for fee waivers. For instance, all requests for asylum would require a mandatory $1,000 fee (currently, there is no fee for asylum applications).
  • Require a $550 initial work authorization application fee for those with pending asylum claims and renewal every six months (instead of five years), leading already vulnerable people trying to support themselves and their families to rely on public or charitable assistance and making them more susceptible to labor exploitation.
  • Impose a $250 “visa integrity fee”—on top of the fees already paid—for every person who receives a nonimmigrant visa, such as religious workers. 
     

In their letter to Congress, the bishops described these provisions as doubling down on an “unsustainable, enforcement-only approach to immigration” and “contrary to the common good.” Ask your senators to remain consistent in protecting human life and dignity and promoting the common good by addressing these harmful provisions before moving the reconciliation bill forward.

Updates from the Futuring Leadership Team

In addition to establishing cohort goals for the next three years, the FLT will expand its membership to six at this time. This addition will help share the workload, expand the range of voices in FLT discussions, and ease the succession planning for the Team. Interested cohort members are invited to submit their name – or recommend a peer – to further explore what membership on the Futuring Leadership Team could mean for them. Deadline for submissions is June 30 to Lisa Kane at dscfuturing@domlife.org

We are grateful to the OP Spirituality & Theology Working Group. for their presentation to the cohort on Preaching as a Spiral of Transformation: Women Preachers in a New Paradigm. Special gratitude to Beth Murphy (Springfield) and Zenaida Giron Hernandez (MSJ) for sharing their very personal experiences as praxis for application of the Spiral.

Our next quarterly cohort gatherings will be on Saturday August 9 3-5pm ET and Wednesday August 20 7-9pm ET. We will hear from our Under 70 Cohort Sisters who represented us at the DSIC and Hope Ezperanza assemblies, both held in Rome. More information and the registration link will be available in the weeks to come.

The Dominican Vocations Collaboration Group is hosting the 2025 Service Immersion experience in Chicago, Illinois June 17–21. Ten discerners have registered to attend and there is a waiting list! Please pray that the Holy Spirit may continue to guide all who take part in these days!

The Bridging Polarities Working Group is finalizing plans for a Restorative Circles Training course. It will be offered in English with Spanish interpretation. Stay tune for further info!

Maryknoll Sisters Invited you to Join Them

The SHARE Foundation and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) warmly invite you to join us in a celebration of the 45th anniversary of the martyrdom of Ita, Maura, Dorothy and Jean. We want to remember our sisters as they were then, and they are now — alive in the struggle for a better world. We remember them by continuing to walk with the people of God in El Salvador. 
Join our Pilgrimage to El Salvador, November 28th to December 6th, 2025 and to Honduras, December  6th to 10th. Walk on sacred land with the people of Ita, Maura, Dorothy, Jean, and Oscar Romero… The People of God. 
The pilgrimage will include visiting the site of the assassination of Ita, Maura, Dorothy and Jean, as well as the sites where Monseñor Romero, Elba, Celina and the 6 Jesuits were killed. We will visit a women’s health and cancer prevention project; we will have an opportunity to embrace and walk with deported women and their families in El Salvador and Honduras. Please apply at share-elsalvador.org.

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