Sister Joanne Kmiec (Agnes Roberta)
Sister Joanne was a lifelong learner. She was creative, curious, artistic, imaginative and multi-talented. Her joy in ministry as a Sister of Charity was in teaching young children, which she did for forty-five years. As well as her degree in Education from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Sister Joanne earned a master's degree in communication arts from Notre Dame University. She was among the first to employ the use of audio-visual media in her classrooms. Her teaching journey took her from Riverton, New Jersey to Amherst and Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada. Returning to the States, she served in Randoph, MA and Manchester, NH. Before completing her ministry in education, Sister Joanne was missioned to Hamilton, Bermuda, where she taught Elementary school students for twelve years. Retiring to Mount Saint Vincent, Wellesley, MA, she continued her mission as a Sister of Charity making the love of God visible by serving as an Assistant Activity Director, where she provided weekly classes in crafts, gardening, computer skills and fine arts. For 35 years she taught school, primarily at St Stephen’s Junior High School in Halifax, NS. A year after she retired from teaching in 1994, she began her second labour of love, her ministry of caring and advocating for her elder Sisters as Coordinator at Mother Berchmans Residence. In 2003 she negotiated and pioneered the wide scale move of the many senior Sisters relocation to Parkstone Enhanced Care. In 2008, she once again led the charge in advocacy for the senior Sisters in their move to Caritas Residence, the retirement home for the Sisters of Charity-Halifax until she retired in 2018.