Sunday, April 28, 2013
Staff report
CANFIELD
For her contributions, Sister Jerome Corcoran, OSU, founder of the Millcreek Children’s Center and the Youngstown Community School, will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Ethnic Heritage Society during a banquet at 5 p.m. June 13 at A La Cart Catering, 429 Lisbon St.
Considered a legendary Mahoning Valley educator, Sister Jerome taught for 12 years in parochial schools and for 36 years directed the acclaimed Mill Creek Children’s Center preschool, for children of lower-income working parents.
Tickets for the event cost $40. A social hour will begin at 5, and dinner will be served at 6 p.m. Tickets are available only in advance. Call Richard Scarsella, event chairman, at 330-726-8277 or heritage society co-directors Tom Welsh at 330-792-7936 and Sandra Cika at 330-297-0362.
Sister Jerome, Sister Mary Dunn and the board of Developing Potential Inc. established the charter school next to Mill Creek Children’s Center in 1998.
Starting out with only 36 kindergarten pupils, the Youngstown Community School now educates 330 students from kindergarten through sixth grade. A grade was added each year, and the school, now paid for, was built in 2002.
At 96, Sister Jerome has begun a new ministry, Sister Jerome’s Poor, which helps poor families, many the working poor, in emergencies.
The nun received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from Catholic University America and her PhD. in education and research from Case Western Reserve University. After earning her doctorate, she taught in colleges and universities and for 15 years served as a supervisor of education for Diocese of Youngstown schools.
The sister’s many honors include the Sargent Shriver Anti-Poverty Remedial Reading Award, B’nai B’rith Woman of the Year Award, Mahoning County Bar Association Award; Ursuline High School Woman of the Year Award, and more recently the Chamber of Commerce William G. Lyden Spirit of the Valley Award.
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