By Thea Jarvis

Sister Deborah Doran, RSM, former parishioner of Holy Cross Church in Atlanta, was recently elected to the administrative leadership of the Baltimore Regional Community of the Sisters of Mercy.

Sister Doran will serve for four years as a member of the order’s five-woman council, which takes office this summer.

The Baltimore region of the Sisters of Mercy covers the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Maryland and the District of Columbia.

During her years in Atlanta, Sister Doran worked with orthopedically handicapped children as a teacher in the DeKalb County school system. After affiliating with the Mercy Sisters in 1980, she went to teach in Baltimore, Savannah and Macon. She also served for three years as vocations director for the order.

She currently directs the Open Arms Home for Medically Fragile Infants, a community-based facility in Savannah which she helped open in May, 1991. The home cares for babies up to a year old who have had prenatal exposure to drugs or have tested positive for HIV. It was originally under the aegis of Childkind, Inc., an Atlanta-based foster agency for HIV positive infants and toddlers.

Sister Doran’s mother, Lucille, is a member of Holy Family Church in Marietta.

The 1992-96 regional council also includes Sister Margaret Beatty, president, and Sisters Barbara Wheeley, Carmela Sarandria and Marilyn Graf, who, along with Sister Doran, were elected at the order’s chapter meeting in Baltimore this January.

Sister Graf is a family therapist at Charter Lake Hospital in Macon.

All five women will return to Baltimore to begin their new assignment this summer.