Catholic Charities spreading out, staying focused
Strategic plan being implemented to expand agency’s reach throughout the diocese
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“If you lavish your food on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness ... and you shall be like a watered garden, like a flowing spring whose waters never fail.” (Isaiah 58:10-11)
That’s all in a day’s work for Catholic Charities of Central and Northern Missouri (cccnmo.diojeffcity.org), the charitable arm of the Jefferson City diocese.
“Catholic Charities is here to serve the poor and needy of the diocese,” said Scott Thrasher, president of Catholic Charities’ board of directors. “Some of the specifics have changed out of necessity over the years, but the mission and focus remain constant.”
The agency, one of about 170 Catholic Charities affiliates in the United States, is undergoing a leadership transition while carrying out the most ambitious refocusing of services in its 16-year history.
“Great things are happening,” said Mr. Thrasher, a member of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Columbia. “Catholic Charities is on a solid path to the future.”
Through grants and local services, Catholic Charities helps parishes and the wider communities in these 38 counties respond to people’s essential needs, regardless of faith, culture or situation.
Litz Main, who served as executive director for three years, recently left the agency for a position closer to her family.
Bishop Ralph B. O’Donnell and the board of directors hired Tim Rickabaugh, a seasoned administrator and member of the Cathedral of St. Joseph Parish in Jefferson City, to serve as interim executive director.
During Ms. Main’s tenure, Catholic Charities undertook a strategic planning process that started with people throughout the diocese taking part in an online community needs assessment.
The Catholic Charities board and current leadership used that information to prayerfully and analytically assemble a comprehensive strategic plan.
“That plan is now being executed by the passionate and experienced Catholic Charities team,” said Mr. Thrasher. “The focus is on engaging with the parishes and parishioners and chasing the Catholic Charities mission out into the whole diocese.”
Highlights include expanding Charity and Mercy Grants to help parishes throughout the diocese be universally recognized as centers of charity and sanctuaries of mercy; sending a mobile food pantry out into the community; and addressing the need for immigration services and behavioral health resources within these 38 counties.
“The whole idea is to engage more people throughout the diocese,” said Mr. Thrasher.
“If you talk to any of the Catholic Charities staff or any of the board members, there’s an excitement in their voice,” he said. “They can see how this plan is going to work and how it’s already working, and how the mission that was set forth 16 years ago can be fully realized.”
Into the deep
Food security remains a serious concern.
Catholic Charities is well known for the client choice food pantry that helps about 320 families in and near Jefferson City each week, with about 7,000 families registered to use the pantry regularly.
The strategic plan includes expanding the pantry’s reach into rural communities with fewer public resources.
“You will see a mobile food pantry reaching to the outskirts of the diocese by the end of the fiscal year,” said Mr. Thrasher.
Funding for the necessary vehicle and trailer has been secured.
Keeping families together by helping people regularize their immigration status is another important part of Catholic Charities’ work here.
The strategic plan calls for increasing the number of Department of Justice-certified immigration specialists at Catholic Charities and having them visit communities throughout the diocese.
Catholic Charities Family Immigration Services provided over 1,000 legal consultations in 2025, including 600 new cases.
They helped people from 35 countries of origin all over the world, including 17 priests and consecrated religious who are here on religious worker visas.
Another perennial concern is the need for competent mental health services.
In partnership with the diocesan Catholic Schools Office and Deacon Chad Lewis, Catholic Charities is working to bring behavioral health services to underserved communities in the diocese.
Deacon Lewis, a certified behavioral health analyst, has been contracted to provide services and interventions in Catholic schools in the diocese.
So far this year, 19 students have received professional services, including three critical situations where serious risk of self-harm or suicide was present.
The agency is also working to strengthen and revitalize ministry to people who are incarcerated in one of the state’s many adult correctional institutions in the diocese.
Furthermore, Catholic Charities has increased the number of Charity and Mercy Grants awarded to parishes to help with charitable endeavors.
“The grants help to launch new ministries or expand acts of mercy that are rooted in each parish’s pastoral plan,” Deacon Christopher Korte of Mary Immaculate Parish in Kirksville, a member of the Catholic Charities Board of Directors, recently told parish leaders in the North Deanery.
The agency has awarded 33 Charity and Mercy Grants since the program started, totaling $270,000.
“Catholic Charities wants to empower you and partner with you to make things happen at the grassroots level where you live,” said Deacon Korte.
This year, for the first time, at least one parish in each of the diocese’s five deaneries received a Charity and Mercy Grant.
“The focus is on engaging with parishes and parishioners beyond Jefferson City and Columbia,” Mr. Thrasher noted.
Forgive our debtors
Mr. Thrasher pointed out that Catholic Charities is built on an ironclad foundation, and the agency’s dedicated, knowledgeable, passionate staff are poised to build on that.
“And the foundation has been built over the past 16 years and the leadership of three bishops,” he said.
Bishop John R. Gaydos, now deceased, and Sister Kathleen Wegman of the School Sisters of Notre Dame established Catholic Charities of Central and Northern Missouri in 2010.
It started as an amalgamation of the diocese’s former Social Concerns, Prison Ministry, and Family Life offices and its Immigration and Refugee Services.
The ministries have evolved to match current needs, while the strategic plan opens the door to further opportunities.
For instance, Catholic Charities will continue working with a local bank to help people who are being exploited by predatory lending practices refinance their debt.
“This initiative helps families and individuals replace high-interest payday or title loans to offer an affordable, low-interest option, along with financial counseling and coaching,” said Deacon Korte.
In the past year, Catholic Charities has helped 26 clients refinance up to $87,000 in debt, reducing the average interest rate significantly — in some cases from triple digits to low double digits.
These services help people get their lives back and maybe avoid losing their home or their car.
“The people who get caught up in these loans are already desperate and don’t have enough money to live,” Deacon Korte noted. “They’re real people who are among the most vulnerable, and people are taking advantage of them.”
Also, local communities throughout the diocese are placing “blessing barrels” in Catholic churches and some Catholic schools in the diocese to remind people to help their neighbors in need.
Food, personal-care items and other necessities parishioners place in the barrels are distributed locally.
“It’s just one more way for us to remember who we are called to be as Christians and invite our parishes to take part in that,” said Deacon Korte.
“Immense grace”
Bishop O’Donnell called to mind the words of an ancient Catholic hymn, “Ubi Caritas” — “Wherever there are charity and love, God is there present.”
“We already have God’s living, breathing presence within us through our Baptism and our frequent reception of the Holy Eucharist,” the bishop pointed out. “We are thereby compelled to carry together the yoke of charity and love into every aspect of our lives and into the lives of people all around us, especially those who are vulnerable and have no one else to speak or act on their behalf.”
Bishop O’Donnell sees Catholic Charities as an important way for Catholics throughout the diocese to put that privileged responsibility into practice, “so that all will recognize each of our parishes as centers of charity and sanctuaries of mercy, in keeping with the immense grace God continues to shower upon us.”
He also sees Catholic Charities as an effective means of collaborating with other faith communities and service agencies in addressing unmet needs in creative and helpful ways.
He noted that specific needs are different in every region of the diocese and that they often change over time.
“I look forward to seeing how the Community Needs Assessment steers the work of Catholic Charities toward even deeper compassionate collaboration in all of our communities,” said Bishop O’Donnell.
He emphasized that Catholic Charities will stay true to its founding principles and will continue standing on a foundation of prayer, cooperation, prudent stewardship of resources and adherence to Sacred Scripture and the sound teachings of the Church.
“Our mission and identity are clearly and intentionally Catholic and will remain so,” he stated, “so that all who are helped and lifted up — regardless of who they are or how they worship — will recognize God himself in their midst.”
