Holy Cross Sisters' stamp collection funds ministries with the poor across the world

Friday, Oct. 24, 2014

SALT LAKE CITY — The Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Cross collects canceled postage stamps; the proceeds from stamp sales help support their ministries with the poor in Africa, Asia, South America, Mexico, and the United States.

“There are about 40 projects each year that are given from $2,000 to $10,000 for such things as schools in Ghana, Uganda and India; clinics in Bangladesh and a preschool in Florida,” said Holy Cross Sister Karla McKinnie, director of the Special Needs Program, Diocese of Salt Lake City. 

In Utah, “Holy Cross Ministries uses grant money from the congregation for its After School program and immigration ministry, as well as for the Utah Catholic schools Leadership Education.”

Four years go, Holy Cross Sister Jane Chantal agreed to manage the congregation’s stamp ministry because, while ministering in Africa, she had benefited from the funds it raises.

Before serving in Africa, Sr. Jane was in Utah, where she helped open Bishop Glass Elementary School in 1955 in Saint Patrick Parish, where she served until 1961. She later served at Holy Cross Hospital, where she helped establish the psychiatric unit and was involved with mental health issues in the Salt Lake area. 

In 1981 Sr. Jane went to Uganda to head a school of nursing; then she spent 16 years in Ghana, where she was in charge of health care for the diocese.

“Being a psychiatric nurse, I was anxious to get services established for the mentally ill street people, and I established a day care center for them with the money from the ministry with the poor,” she said.

When Sr. Jane was asked to manage the stamp room after she moved to Saint Mary’s Convent in Notre Dame, Ind., “it took me five days of prayer to say ‘yes’ because I didn’t know much about stamps,” she said. “I appreciated the ministry of stamp collecting because for more than 40 years our sisters have collected donated stamps and passed them on to stamp collectors for donations to our ministry.” 

The same day Sr. Jane agreed to manage the ministry she met a friend from Ghana, Claude Renshaw, a retired English professor from St. Mary’s College, who has collected stamps since he was 10. He identifies buyers for the stamps. 

“God had sent an angel,” she said. 

After Sr. Jane took over the ministry, she began to obtain stamp collections, not just individual stamps; now collectors all over the world are interested in the stamps they receive. 

“Every year the amount [of donated stamps] increases and the poor benefit,” she said. “This is a way the community can contribute something to the poor where they may not otherwise be able.”

No stamp is wasted, she said. “The reason we can process so many is because we have so many people who know a lot about stamps helping us,” Sr. Jane said. “Twenty-six retired sisters and several lay volunteers and students prepare the stamps for sale; if a stamp has a flaw and cannot be sold, it is given to a school to be used in an art class. We take all kinds of stamps, postcards, stamp collections, and we put them together in packages for stamp dealers for auction.” 

As people learn about the sisters’ stamp project, “they are donating them to us,” said Sr. Karla. “One priest, who is 85, drove all the way from Texas to give Sr. Chantal his stamp collection personally.”

She also received 14 boxes, each containing 40 albums, from somebody from the East, she said. 

Send canceled stamps to Sister Karla McKinnie at the Diocesan Schools Office, 27 C Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84103; she will also pick them up at any parish in the Salt Lake Valley. For information, contact her at 801-328-8641.