BY PRISCILLA GREEAR

Staff Writer

ATLANTA--Sister Mary Kay Finneran, a member of the Sisters of Charity of New York, has taken a new position at the St. Vincent de Paul Society to train volunteers and help those in financial need find resources to assist them.

After serving at St. Pius X High School in Atlanta for seven years as director of campus ministry, where she taught and motivated students in social outreach, she will now more directly help the poor in the Societyís newly created position of education and training coordinator.

At 59 years old, Sister Finneran believes she will more closely fulfill her orderís vision for the Year 2000 of working with women and the poor and caring for the earth.

"I felt, as much as I loved what I was doing--encouraging students and helping them to reach out into the community--I needed more day by day contact with the poor and helping them and enabling them to look beyond," she said.

At the post since Oct. 1, she spends half her time with clients in financial struggle needing various forms of aid. In addition to offering temporary support services, she plans to expand the level of aid offered by the Society to try and prevent people from reaching a crisis and help them achieve long term self-sufficiency.

While listening to clients describe their basic financial needs, she often discovers deeper needs which contribute to financial problems, such as for education, job training, emotional support, better housing or hope. The outcome may be to recommend the client obtain a high school equivalency diploma or budgeting or computer skills, and then determine which resources can be tapped for this kind of assistance.

Of the clients served by SVDP, 50 percent are welfare recipients and many others are experiencing temporary financial crises. Temporary services provided include food, clothing, housing assistance, utility assistance, medications, furniture and burials.

Sister Finneran hopes to identify additional educational opportunities and non-profit programs for clients. In the future she may consider offering incentives to clients to participate in educational and other programs that offer them the hope and emotional support they lack.

"So many of them need hope. They're hopeless...(My co-workers) feel one of the biggest things people need is motivation," Sister Finneran said.

"The needs are there and the resources are there. There should not be a single person hungry in this city. There is enough food in this city to feed everyone."

She feels she is the strongest witness to her faith by being present to those in need and listening to them and quoted St. Vincent de Paul, "The poor will forgive you the bread you give them if you give it with love"î

Another objective of her position is to expand and diversify the Societyís ongoing training of its volunteer members by developing new materials and building up the education/training committee.

Sister Finneran will work with the conference services committee, which assists parish volunteers, to provide at least one training opportunity for new volunteers for every two of the 52 St. Vincent de Paul parish conferences in the archdiocese.

Topics include the organizationís five-year strategic plan and the Societyís philosophy that volunteers should respond in faith to the poor through action and be transformed in service to them.

She will also educate parish volunteers on the availability of resources to assist clients, and on issues such as welfare reform laws and problems clients may encounter as they seek work including a lack of transportation or child care.

The Society has approximately 900 volunteers in the archdiocese including active members, who volunteer and attend meetings, associate members, who volunteer, and contributing members, who assist financially.

Sister Finneran hopes to increase the number of youth and adult volunteers and will continue to work with the St. Pius High School conference.

While she will now try to motivate the suffering to help them achieve self-sufficiency, at St. Pius she motivated youth to help those in need.

Sister Finneran said that the youth at St. Pius were enthusiastic and receptive to the Christian message and willing to serve. She emphasized social outreach and took them to volunteer at the Nicholas House family shelter and help build a Habitat for Humanity house. The high school work helped her develop leadership skills, an understanding of youth and many contacts at Atlanta shelters.

Growing up in New York City, she was active in the Sodality of the Blessed Mother and volunteered at a hospital. She was impressed by the activities and Christian witness of the Sisters of Charity working at her high school and the hospital, and felt called to sisterhood.

"Many of these women I never talked to, but I watched them in action. They were fun people and you could tell that they loved what they were doing," she said.

Sister Finneran graduated from St. Vincent's Hospital School of Nursing in New York in 1964 and received a bachelorÕs degree in nursing from Hunter College in 1968. She taught elementary school in the city for five years and later spent five years in Peru with the Maryknoll Sisters as a nurse to Aymara Indians. In Atlanta she worked as a nurse at Piedmont and Shallowford Hospitals before joining the St. Pius staff, initially as a school nurse.

While all are not required to dedicate their lives in service to the poor, the nun believes that Christians should serve the poor and oppressed in some way through a regular commitment to volunteer or help financially if not through a job.

"I think in some way we all have to live out the Gospel message...As Christians we have to be aware of our responsibility. How we live that out we have to figure out according to our gifts and talents," she said.