Sister Irene Novak (left) gets help from Sister Anne Kutch, volunteer Kathy McGorry-Lowe and Sister Marietta Bankos in lovingly preparing a batch of stamps for shipment off to the Sisters of the Holy Cross, where they will be sold to collectors and brokers and the profits used to benefit the poor.
Sealed with Love
stamp ministry delivers real-life help for the poor
Postage stamps have long created connections between people separated by many miles and even oceans. They’ve carried love letters between soldiers stationed abroad and their wives and families waiting back home. They’ve connected pen pals on different continents and grandparents and their grandchildren in different states. And through a special ministry of the School Sisters of St. Francis, they’ve underwritten food and resources for the impoverished.
It all began years ago when our own Sister Irene Novak vacationed in Maine with her brother, Bill, an avid coin and stamp collector. He toiled at creating special albums of stamps related to specific countries, telling each nation’s history through stamps. He even gifted Sister Irene with an album he’d compiled of the Vatican from its initial inception as an independent state in Rome. Soon, Sister Irene was hooked. She began helping Bill with his collection and embraced collecting as her own hobby when she retired from active ministry.
During a period of down-sizing a few years ago, Sister Irene began to search for a philatelic group that might be interested in having her collection. That’s when she learned that the Sisters of the Holy Cross in Notre Dame, Indiana, had a stamp ministry dedicated exclusively to helping the poor. She connected with Sister Jane Frances Chantal there and soon transformed her own hobby into a project for the poor.
In a common space at Monocacy Manor in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Sister Irene meticulously trims the stamps from their envelopes with a required quarter-inch border and separates them into categories for foreign, commemorative and special issue stamps. She then packs them up and ships them off to the Holy Cross Sisters, who, with help from volunteer Claude Renshaw, transform them into profits for the poor by selling them at stamp fairs and to collectors.
“I have a lot of fun observing which countries have the most colorful stamps and what they feature,” Sister says. A recent favorite of hers was a stamp from the Czech Republic featuring famously rotund British author G.K. Chesterton.
Sister Karen Buco explores a recent donation of collectible stamps dropped off at Mt. Assisi Place in Pittsburgh by Greg Stewart.
When word spread throughout our United States Province that Sister Irene was collecting canceled stamps, our Sisters responded by clipping and keeping stamps from their own mail and ministry offices. Sister Karen Buco, who lives at Mt. Assisi Place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, became Sister Irene’s helper on the western side of the state, setting out collection boxes at the former Mount Assisi Convent, Marian Hall Home and Mount Assisi Academy Preschool.
From there, support of the effort steamrolled. Greg and Jim Stewart, whose mother was a long-time resident of Mt. Assisi Place (formerly Marian Hall Home), inquired about the stamp collection boxes they saw when visiting and became enthusiastic benefactors of the stamp ministry by donating their own collections and the inventory of a small hobby shop Greg once owned. A similar business in Easton, Pennsylvania, also contributed.
Sister Irene displays her beloved Vatican stamp album.
“Like so many hobbies today, stamp collecting doesn’t appeal to the younger generation,” Greg says. “Stamps and all of the items associated with this hobby are difficult to sell.” Intrigued to learn that the materials might have a charitable use, Greg also appealed to Brad and Blaine Shiff, owners of Cybercoins.net, a Pittsburgh-based coin and stamp-collection shop.
“These guys have collected piles of stuff that they have donated to this project,” Greg explains. “The value, by modern-day prices, would likely exceed thousands of dollars in the good old days.”
Through the generosity of the Stewarts and Shiffs, Sister Irene soon was able to convert more lucrative foreign stamps, first-day issues and collector albums into tangible results for the poor. “For me, it is delightful to learn how the money is used,” Sister says.
A Holy Cross Sister missioned in Africa has used some of the profits to purchase books with which to help young children learn to read. Another Sister serving in Uganda used stamp funds to purchase peeps to teach a family there how to raise chickens to not only feed themselves, but also make a living. The stamps also funded a sewing machine for a needy woman with seamstress skills so that she could earn a living by mending garments for others.
Sister Irene still cherishes the special Vatican album that her brother gave her. She has parted with nearly her entire collection, except for that one treasured piece. “Hopefully when I die, my nephew might cherish his dad’s work,” she says.
Virtually our entire community has contributed to the stamp ministry — whether by simply clipping and keeping their own canceled stamps, helping them get to Sister Irene, or as hands-on helpers like Sisters Karen, Marietta Bankos and Anne Kutch, who help with the clipping when stamps arrive en masse from multiple sources. Even Helen McComb, one of our Associates from Allentown, Pennsylvania, has hand-delivered the fruits of the Sisters’ labor while visiting the Notre Dame area.
Stamps, which have for many decades, connected people in distant places, have also united Sisters, friends and generous donors in a collective effort to help others in need — some a world away. For Sister Irene, the ministry is a labor of love, although filled with much more love than labor. “This has always been and still is a hobby that keeps me entertained,” she says. “It always makes me feel good that fun for me turns out to be food for someone else.”
Sister Irene takes particular delight in the depiction of British author G.K. Chesterton on this stamp from the Czech Republic.
how to help
If you’d like to contribute to this unique ministry, donated stamps may
be sent directly to the Sisters of the Holy Cross:
Stamp Ministry
100 Augusta Hall
Saint Mary’s
Notre Dame IN 46556
Likewise, if you’d like to support Sister Irene’s efforts, monetary donations are welcome to help cover shipping costs for the boxes of stamps she sends to Notre Dame:
Stamp Ministry
c/o Sister Irene Novak
395 Bridle Path Road
Bethlehem PA 18017
What’s Needed
Save new or used stamps that have their perforated edges intact, are not too heavily canceled, and are not torn, cut or stained.
Leave at least a quarter-inch on each side of a stamp when cutting it from an envelope.
Common U.S. forever stamps that depict the flag, Liberty Bell or fireworks are too plentiful to be of value.
However, other more unique designs, especially old stamps and commemorative ones, are ideal.
The Sisters particularly appreciate foreign stamps and sheets, U.S. mint stamp sheets, U.S. mint strips and plate blocks, album collections, first day covers, and postcards.