About 300 guests gathered at the New York Athletic Club in Manhattan for the SOAR! – Support Our Aging Religious – annual dinner, held on October 9.

Based in Silver Spring, Maryland, SOAR! offers support in the form of grants to religious orders of up to $50,000. Grants are used for tasks such as adding accessibility ramps or leveling floors for easier walking or standing. It also addresses emergency needs that can include a boiler that breaks in the middle of winter, a roof that needs repair, or even such basic needs as buying food. In 2024, SOAR was able to award more than $3.1 million in grants, a record for the organization.

SOAR recognized Mario J. Paredes, K.G.C.H.S., chief executive officer of SOMOS Community Care, with their 2024 Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Award, and Mother Dolores Hart, OSB, with the 2024 Father Victor Yanitelli, SJ Award. 

A native of Chile, Paredes has over 30 years of experience as an executive in healthcare administration and is recognized as a leader in business development with nonprofits, governmental organizations and religious entities. Since 2015, he has served as the CEO of SOMOS Community Care in New York City. The network includes over 2,500 physicians and 800 providers.

Mother Hart is a Benedictine nun at the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut, who became a cloistered nun in 1963. Before that, during a seven-year career in film and on Broadway, she starred in 10 films, most notably opposite Elvis Presley in “Loving You” and “King Creole.”  She was nominated for a Tony Award for her performance in the “Pleasure of His Company” on Broadway. 

“Thank you for honoring me with the 2024 Father Victor Yanitelli, SJ Award. It is very moving to be recognized in this way. And thank you for your presence this evening at SOAR’s 2024 New York awards dinner,” Mother Hart, speaking via a video message, said. She described the renovations and repairs that her abbey was able to make, thanks in total or in part to SOAR grants. “I speak on behalf of our abbess and the entire Regina Laudis community in thanking SOAR. Thank you, benevolent donors, for helping us to live our best lives,” she added.

Introduced by Sister Joan Curtin, vicar religious for the Archdiocese of New York, Paredes accepted his award, paying tribute to the religious brothers and sisters, especially the Congregation of Sisters of St. Joseph that had shaped his early life in Brooklyn. “The eight Josephines that worked and lived in the convent of St. Peter and Paul in the most austere conditions of life. No salaries. Full-time workers. They had 600 students at St. Peter and Paul School, and the tuition was only $10 in 1973,” Paredes said. He received a standing ovation following his remarks.

“Grants from SOAR helped us install handicapped showers, stair lifts, new, less hazardous flooring, and fix uneven sidewalks” at his order’s assisted living facility in New Rochelle, and at another facility in Mount Vernon, Brother Peter Zawot, CFC, province leader for the Edmund Rice Christian Brothers North America Province and Latin America Mission Area, told The Good Newsroom at the dinner.

Guests of note from the Archdiocese of New York included Brother Tyrone Davis, executive director of the Office of Black Ministry, who served as co-chair of this year’s dinner; and Monsignor Kevin Sullivan, executive director of Catholic Charities of New York.

Aging and retired religious face different challenges than laypeople in the same situation. Because of the low wages that religious receive during their working lives, their average Social Security benefit is only $6,800 per year, whereas the average layperson receives $18,000. 

SOAR! was founded by laypeople in 1986, and most of its board members are laypeople.