Serving and 
strengthening families: Pernet Family Health Service celebrates 70 years

By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press

Pernet Family Health Service in Worcester, celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, has grown and changed over time. But those serving there try to maintain what the Little Sisters of the Assumption, who started the ministry, aimed for.

No sisters work at Pernet now, but “the whole staff is a deeply committed staff,” said Sister Jean McCormack, the Little Sister of the Assumption who is chairwoman of the board of directors. “They understand the spirit and mission. … It’s strengthening families … really living out the social teachings of the Church … treating each person with dignity and respect, calling them by name, recognizing that we’re all one, and mutually helping each other to grow and become a family.”

“We offer a broad range of services, including emergency assistance, youth programs, parent support, maternal & infant nursing, early intervention, and early education and care,” says the website pernetfamilyhealth.org/70th-anniversary. “In 2024 alone, these programs made a difference in the lives of more than 12,000 people.”

Pernet meets families when they’re in crisis, and brings them together, which shows them they’re not alone, “and that, together, we can strengthen each other,” Sister Jean said.

This was the vision of Venerable Father Etienne Pernet, an Augustinian of the Assumption who founded the Little Sisters of the Assumption with Antoinette Fage in 1865 in Paris, she said. During the Industrial Revolution, he saw families moving from farms to cities and having difficulty coping.

“He had this vision of women who could work to keep families together” and help them grow together, Sister Jean said. “He also had the vision of people from all different walks of life” working together for families.

Now there are approximately 300 Little Sisters in about 22 countries, six of them in the United States, Sister Jean said. She said six came to New York in 1891.

Little Sisters came to the Worcester diocese from Woonsocket, Rhode Island, in 1955 at the invitation of Bishop (later Cardinal) John J. Wright. A flood damaged their house there, and families they served moved away, Sister Jean said.

In Worcester the sisters lived on Claremont St.; then Millbury Street, where Pernet is still located; then Endicott Street, where they also had a house for long-term volunteers.
Volunteers no longer live in community at a house provided by the sisters, but students from area colleges help at Pernet.

When the sisters came to Worcester they sometimes stayed all day helping in one home, Sister Jean said. Money for their ministry came from the Bishop’s Fund, now called Partners in Charity, and donations.

But after they incorporated as the non-profit agency called Pernet Family Health Service in 1968, and got government funding, they had to meet government requirements, such as limiting time spent with families and discharging them from services, she said. They sought other funds to meet needs not covered by the government.

“There came a point where we turned everything over to the board of directors,” Sister Jean said. “We put it in the bylaws that a Little Sister would be on the board [and] have one vote, like everybody else.”

Now sometimes a lay person represents a sister on one of their boards, as is the case for their agency in New York City, where two Little Sisters work, she said. She said the sister at their Dorchester agency is preparing to go live and work at the New York agency, and the other two Little Sisters in the United States are in a nursing home in Marlborough. Sister Jean, the community’s treasurer, lives in Worcester.

“For the sisters, the greatest joy is the lay people who carry the mission forward,” she said.
Sheilah H. Dooley, Pernet’s executive director and a member of Blessed Sacrament Parish in Worcester, is one of those people.

Originally Pernet was run by the sisters, but lay nurses worked there, Mrs. Dooley said. She came as a nurse in 1991, just before the first lay executive director, and succeeded her in 1997.

“When I began in 1991, we had six registered nurses,” three sisters and three lay people, Mrs. Dooley said. “We focused on postpartum and newborn” care and education. The nurses also helped other family members if needed.

“For babies that have a medical diagnosis … we can bill insurance companies,” she said. To help other people, the agency seeks grants.

Partners in Charity money mostly supports the emergency assistance program that includes the food pantry, Mrs. Dooley said.

“The growth of the agency is substantial,” she said. “All the programs have grown” - in number of people served and funding to serve them - since she came in 1991, when the agency served about about 400 families.

Pernet’s annual budget was about $800,000 when she became executive director in 1997, and is now about $7 million, she said.

“Part of the reason for that,” is that “two years ago we merged with Webster Square Day Care Center,” which doubled the size of Pernet’s outreach and extended it to another age group, she said. This program serves more than 260 children in a preschool and with childcare at St. Mary Health Care Center and with childcare in homes.

“Even though we’ve grown so much, we still have the atmosphere of a small agency ... that knows our clients personally and goes the extra mile,” Mrs. Dooley said.

Does Pernet attempt to help clients spiritually?

Mrs. Dooley said if someone is looking for spiritual help “we can help ... them to find what’s appropriate for them.”

She said the agency is more present in the community now, thanks to hiring, in 2021, an associate executive director  - Joel Wallen - who attends meetings of local coalitions.

“We’re financially sound and we hope to continue for many, many years,” Mrs. Dooley said. But, “in some ways, we wish we’d put ourselves out of a job,” by meeting people’s needs so there isn’t so much need.

But now, with concerns about federal funding cuts, there is uncertainty about what needs clients will have and whether Pernet will get the money to meet them, she said.

Central Massachusetts legislators have informed state government of Pernet’s need for funding, especially for postpartum care, and “we’re asking our donors to donate,” she said.
One of the ways of observing Pernet’s anniversary was a request this May for donations from an Amazon wish list or monetary contributions for the maternal-child health program, Sister Jean said.

Anniversary celebrations for invited people involved with Pernet are also scheduled.
Today there is food and fun at Crompton Park, to bring current clients together.

Former clients organized a reunion to get together with each other and the Little Sisters for Mass, lunch, children’s games and sharing of memories tomorrow at North American Martyrs Parish in Auburn.

An anniversary Mass and meal for supporters are planned for Aug. 16 at Assumption University.

Pernet’s Platinum Party, an anniversary fundraiser with a dinner and a silent auction, is planned for Sept. 25 at Top of the Tower in Worcester.

– For more information see pernetfamilyhealth.org/70th-anniversary.


Memories shared of the ministry of 
the Little Sisters of the Assumption

Pregnant with her sixth child, Noreen Collins learned she had cancer. Her husband had his own struggles, and was no longer with the family.

Barbara Reed was home with her eight children. Her husband, Francis X. Reed, worked multiple jobs to provide for them.

What’s a mother to do?

Meet the Little Sisters of the Assumption, from Pernet Family Health Service.

Local Catholics told The Catholic Free Press these stories of their families, whom the sisters helped in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s.

Some of these former clients have organized a reunion for tomorrow, to celebrate Pernet’s 70th anniversary and share  memories with each other and the sisters. The reunion, being held at North American Martyrs Parish in Auburn, includes Mass, lunch, and children’s games.

Organizer Deborah Collins White, of Sacred Heart-St. Catherine of Sweden Parish in Worcester, recalled how her mother, Noreen Collins, was sick with cancer for three years. Mrs. White said Sister Jeanine Dacri (no longer a Little Sister, but a reunion organizer) came to their Worcester home Monday through Friday, took care of her mother and the children, made meals, and cleaned the house.

Deacon (later Father) Dennis Rocheford, now deceased, brought Communion weekly and talked with her mother, she said.

“I couldn’t be more grateful,”Mrs. White said. “I was 17. I was the oldest” of the five living children. (One died before the youngest was born.)

Mrs. White said her mother died in 1978 at age 40, and she herself returned from military service to take care of her siblings.

Another reunion organizer, Michael Reed, of St. Andrew the Apostle Mission in Worcester, is one of Francis and Barbara Reed’s children. He said the sisters came to their home daily, cooked, helped clean and taught the children to do chores. They helped the family in the 1960s, and again in the early 1980s.

“We would have Masses at our house,” he recalled. Other families came and the sisters played the guitar.

When one brother got cancer in 1980, the sisters provided hospice-like care until he died at age 15, “and they sang at the funeral.”

The Reeds, along with other families, visited the sisters at their convent for family days. The sisters were about bringing families together and getting them to help each other. Together, sisters and laity have the motto: “To be what we wish to create ... family.”

At one point the sisters gave Mr. and Mrs. Reed an award as the retiring coordinator couple of the Fraternity of Our Lady of the Assumption. The Fraternity was an organization of families the sisters helped, who remained involved with them and their ministry to others, giving back and carrying out the sisters’ spirit.

Today, Pernet Family Health Service continues its service to and with families, although in different ways.