Printer Friendly Version - Helping Her Church, School, and Community: Joanne Fresco

When it comes to volunteering and sharing with others, Joanne Fresco has given more than 40 years—and still has much more to give—to her church, school and community. Photo courtesy of St. Mary’s School

This is a busy time of year for Joanne Fresco, but that is true all year round for this Branford resident, who is a supporter of both St. Mary Church and St. Mary School.

Joanne is now more than 40 years—and counting—into volunteer and career work through St. Mary Church, now a part of St. John Bosco Parish, and its school; she started shortly after moving to town. This time of year, Joanne once again coordinates a parish and school collection and delivery of dozens dinner hams, and many more candy-filled Easter baskets, that will be offered to Branford families in need this week.

Now a pastoral associate of St. Mary Catholic Church, Joanne helped start the parish-wide Easter donation effort, now an annual tradition. Many donations support families served by Branford Counseling Center (BCC) as well as some families belonging to the parish, says Joanne.

“We put a notice in our bulletins that we’re once again collecting hams for Easter, and parishioners bring hams in after each [Palm Sunday] Mass, and on Monday we arrange for the counseling center to pick up whatever we will not use,” says Joanne. “Last year, we gave over 40 hams to BCC.”

On a parish and school level, Joanne also coordinates putting together Easter baskets filled with candy for kids in need served by BCC, as well as families in the parish who express a need.

“We put together over 100 baskets last year,” says Joanne. “The majority went to BCC and some stayed for parishioners we knew had a need here.”

Joanne works much the same magic each year at Christmas, coordinating parish and school contributions through St. Mary Giving Tree, which links kids in need with donors.

“That goes back several years, I’ve been involved with it for at least 30 or 35 years,” says Joanne. “At one point, I worked for BCC, and we used to do a little bit of community service work and help our clients that way. That led [St. Mary] into getting involved with The Giving Tree.”

A Branford resident since 1972, Joanne, her husband and their three kids have always been a part of the community and their church. Joanne started volunteering with St. Mary more than 40 years ago and also volunteered to help out in her new home town about the same time.

“My background was in finance and at the time there was a program in town that was state funded, training different people for different jobs, and the program ran out of money, and the counseling center didn’t have anyone to do their books,” says Joanne. “There was a committee in town of all different people, from all different [service] agencies, and I represented St. Mary Church. So I said I’d be willing to go into the counseling center on a volunteer basis and see if it’s something I can help them out with.”

A stay-at-home mom at the time, Joanne she found a way to juggle her time when her kids were at school.

For hundreds of children who received their religious education through St. Mary, Joanne is a very familiar face. For more than 40 years, Joanne was St. Mary’s director of faith formation (DFF), with the overall responsibility for more than 400 children and catechists each year. Joanne is now retired from the position. She started off teaching 8th grade catechism and still teaches 5th grade religion at St. Mary School.

As a mom of St. Mary students herself, Joanne also helped to found the St. Mary School girls basketball team.

“I love the sport of basketball. From the time I was a young girl, I played on a traveling team,” says Joanne, a New Haven native. “When I came to St. Mary when my daughters were young, I realized they did not have athletics for girls, so I approached the principal and said, ‘We have a nice athletic program for boys, but nothing for girls—I’m willing to set something up and be responsible for it.’ And he gave me the permission! So I coached it for several years, and stayed on the board for several years.”

In January 2018, Joanne announced she would finish her work teaching religious education St. Mary School with the end of the school year. She hopes to continue to volunteer at the school teaching at least one of her other programs she offers, Rainbows for all God’s Children, a peer grief/loss program; and the Child Lures Prevention Program (also known as “Think First & Stay Safe.”). As member of the Greater New Haven & Shoreline Directors of Religious Education, Joanne’s an archdiocesan-trained facilitator for both programs.

Next year, she hopes to continue volunteering teaching some programs at St. Mary School. The school is set to undergo several changes next year as the pilot school for the STREAM (science, technology, religion, engineering, the arts, and mathematics) initiative.

Through her connections with St. Mary Church and school, Joanne is grateful to have received exemplary additional religious training through the years, including graduating from the Archdiocese of Hartford’s four-year Biblical Program with certification in advanced Bible studies, and completing the Archdiocese’s two-year lay ministry program. She’s also is a graduate of Madison’s Mercy Center’s spiritual direction program, making her a certified spiritual director.

Now a daily congregant of St. Mary, Joanne regularly rises each morning no later than 5 a.m. to start her busy day. The timing came in handy when volunteering a few years back with the annual St. Mary’s participation in Abraham’s Tent. The church provides a weekly winter overnight stay for homeless men organized with the church through Columbus House of New Haven.

“I would get over to church at 5 a.m. and the put the coffee on for when guys got up at six, and got the breakfast going,” says Joanne, though knee injuries have curbed that volunteer effort for the past two years.

At St. Mary Church, Joanne also serves as an extraordinary minister of the Eucharist. Each year, she coordinates the annual parish weekend Retreat for Women. She also brings communion to congregants in nursing homes and hospice care.

“They always thank me when I bring them communion, but I get much more out of it than they do, knowing that you’re the tool, you’re the instrument,” says Joanne.

Joanne is a recipient of the Hopes Volunteer of the Year Award for her volunteer service to St. Mary School, the St. Mary School Knights of the Round Table Christian Compassion Award for her outstanding service to the parish community, the Knights of Columbus J T. Reynolds Award for her continuing and outstanding service to St. Mary Church and the Branford, the St. Patrick’s Church and Community of Wooster Square in New Haven’s Lifetime Achievement Award for her continuous volunteer services, and recognition for her volunteer services at Branford Hills Health Care Center during its annual volunteer luncheon.

Joanne says she’ll continue to help her community “as long as the good Lord gives me health.”

“Each morning when I wake up, I say, ‘Here I am Lord, I come to do your will; let me know what that will is,” says Joanne. “And I try to do that; I try to live by that.”