Affiliate Connect Meeting - April

Wed, 04/17/2024 - 2:00pm EDT to 3:00pm

Join our April meeting!

We meet with NCPD Affiliates on the third Wednesday of the month to address various disability-related needs of dioceses. Allison Sturm, Ministry Specialist for Persons with Disabilities, Deaf, & Jail Ministry from the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend will present on:

“Eucharistic Revival: Responding and Accompanying Children and Adults with Developmental Disabilities Seeking Jesus in the Sacraments”

Affiliate Diocesan Directors will receive an email on Wednesday, April 10, 2024, with a link to register.

To learn if your diocese is an Affiliate, click here.

Allison Sturm

Ministry Specialist for Persons with Disabilities, Deaf, & Jail Ministries

Secretariat for Pastoral Ministries & Catechesis from the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend

Allison Joy Sturm, was born in 1962 and the is oldest of five children. Her youngest sister Jennifer was born with down syndrome and died before the age of three, two days before Allison turned 14.

Allison received her Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education from St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame in 1984 and her Master of Science in Elementary Education from the University of Indiana, Fort Wayne in 1989.

Allison initially taught first grade/readiness for four years, got married in 1988 to her husband Joe, who passed away in 2017. She stayed home and raised her five children, Kate, Jack, Michael, Caroline, and Patrick. She began working for the diocese the day her youngest went to kindergarten in 2009. Over the past fourteen and a half years, Allison has worked in twelve different ministries connected to pastoral ministries and evangelization. She has served in the Ministry with Persons with Disabilities since 2010.

Her work in this ministry has been formed by her personal experiences, namely the life of her sister and how her parents cared for Jennifer when they were encouraged to institutionalize her. Additionally the four months that her husband lived after an anoxic brain injury confirmed what her mentor, Mary Glowaski, had demonstrated, and that is that how we accompany someone, even when we can’t change the outcome, makes a difference.

Affiliate Connect Meeting - April

Allison Sturm

National Catholic
Partnership on Disability

Advancing the Meaningful Participation
of Persons with Disabilities in Church and Society