Nun founded program to help children in Moon neighborhood
Sister Mary Rene Procopio spent more than three decades as a schoolteacher and principal.
Then, at an age when many people are winding down their careers, the Roman Catholic Felician sister began a remarkable second act, starting the Mooncrest Neighborhood Program.
Aimed to help at-risk children in an overlooked neighborhood amid middle-class Moon Township, the program has benefited hundreds of kids and inspired numerous volunteers and organizations to join the effort.
Sister Procopio kept at it even as a neurological disease began robbing her of speech and movement in her last years.
“I have been blessed by God to be creative and have great communication skills, to be an advocate for the Mooncrest children and the residents,” she said in an email last year.
Sister Procopio, 73, died Saturday of bulbar palsy, a form of ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
“We can look to her example of courage,” said Sister Mary Christopher Moore, provincial minister of the Felician Sisters — Our Lady of Hope Province. “It’s a big loss not only for the kids and community but for the sisters.” She was born Kathleen Ann Procopio on Aug. 21, 1944, the daughter of Mary and Samuel Procopio, and raised in Mount Carmel, Northumberland County, attending a Catholic grade school where Felician sisters taught.
She was inspired by “the joy of the sisters who taught her,” said her cousin, Felician Sister Mary Cabrini Procopio.
At 13, Kathleen began studies at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart High School in Coraopolis. Upon graduation, she entered the Felicians in 1962, taking the name Mary Rene.
She earned a bachelor of arts degree from La Roche College in 1970 and a master’s in education from the University of Pittsburgh in 1975. She worked as a teacher for 15 years in the Pittsburgh area and as a principal for 21 years at three Catholic schools in Ohio and Pennsylvania, including St. Germaine School in Bethel Park.
While recovering from hip surgery in 2001, she began pondering her next step. At the same time, the Felician sisters were looking for outreaches in the area around their Coraopolis motherhouse.
They connected with residents in Mooncrest, a neighborhood built years earlier for defense workers but which had suffered from disrepair, isolation and absentee landlordism.
In an email last year, Sister Procopio said she felt the presence of Felician founder Mary Angela Truszkowska, “walking the streets of Mooncrest.”
She wrote that she “knew this is where I needed to be.” She and a few other sisters began living there and wanted to help the children they saw frequently skipping school and lacking supervision.
The sisters founded an after-school program for a handful of students in a basement provided by a Baptist church. In 2004, the program moved into a community center, and it has continued to grow and connect students with other opportunities.
Moon officials and police, along with numerous regional schools and organizations, help out with donations and programs of their own. Volunteers include adults who once were children in the program whom Sister Procopio cheered on through their teen and later years at sports events, concerts and graduations.
Diagnosed with ALS in 2014, she maintained her determination to keep working as long as possible.
The township designated last July 5 as Sister Rene Day, complete with an ice cream social at the center that reunited people associated with the program in the past and present. Later in 2017, she moved back to the care center at the Felician motherhouse. Sisters were praying by her bedside during her final hours.
It’s a “difficult farewell” for those she left behind, Sister Cabrini Procopio said. “But her frustration and suffering are gone. She’s at peace, and I know she’s up there running around, making up for all the time she couldn’t speak.”
She leaves numerous siblings, nieces, nephews and Felician sisters.
Calling hours at the Felician Sisters Central Convent, 1500 Woodcrest Ave., Coraopolis, are from 2 to 4 and 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, with a sharing of memories at 7 p.m. The funeral Mass is at noon Saturday in the convent chapel.