Every year in Milwaukee, immediately after International Women’s Day, a celebration recognizing the women within our community who serve others with missionary hearts will take place as part of Women’s History Month.
This year the Bridge Bilder Award was given to Sandra Novak, a member of the Holy Apostles of New Berlin. The Being Present Award was given to the Sisters of Charity.
The Women in Mission Award Ceremony 2025 was held on 9 March at the School Sisters of St. Francis, St. Joseph Hall, Milwaukee, with a social time with food and drinks, to honour the awardees and hear their stories, and to learn about the missionary vocation of women in the Church.
Join us in celebrating faith and service in our local and global community!
Every March since 2017, the Society for the Propagation of the Faith has hosted an event dedicated to women on mission to celebrate their extraordinary lives and their ministry in the service of others in the United States, bearing witness to the many ways in which lay and religious women undertake works of mercy for people who might otherwise be forgotten.
The association’s roots go back to the Missionary Association of Catholic Women, founded by Mary Gockel in 1916 and recognised at state level in 1920.
In Milwaukee, around 1914, Gockel organised a sewing circle in honour of Sister Therese of the Child Jesus, better known simply as Little Flower. This was the first initiative of the group, which would later give rise to the US branch of the Missionary Association of Catholic Women.
Although the Association began as little more than a charitable sewing circle, once it was officially recognised, the organisation’s objective was to provide economic and spiritual support to all Catholic missions at home and abroad, and to promote religious charity and education more generally.
The Association’s first public meeting was held in St. Francis Hall on 3 December 1916, coinciding with the feast day of St. Francis Xavier. Over the years, the Missionary Association of Catholic Women, with its national headquarters in Milwaukee, grew rapidly in terms of membership and funding.
The annual Women in Mission Award Ceremony recognises women religious and lay women who have distinguished themselves through their commitment to global missionary service.
