Teresa Flores is a third-year law student at the Saint Louis University School of Law, and is the upcoming Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion for the Student Bar Association. She was a part of the class, Removal Defense Project: Sheltering Vulnerable Immigrant Children and Families, taught by St....

In December 2018, St. Francis Community Services reached an exciting milestone when the organization created an Endowment Fund through the Roman Catholic Foundation of Eastern Missouri. This endowment provides individuals with a great option to support the work at St. Francis with a gift that truly last a lifetime...

When Lena Salameh thinks about individuals seeking asylum and relief from deportation, she says, “I often think of the poem by Warsan Shire, ‘Nobody leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.” She describes her own family’s journey of immigration – her dad immigrated when he was...

(Image above: St. Francis Community Services marching in the Stand Up for Women Veterans parade in November, 2018) Veterans Advocacy Project attorney Stephanie Lummus often spends her Thursdays away from the St. Francis Community Services Catholic Legal Assistance Ministry office. Preparing for City Diversion Court, she assesses the courtroom...

The weekend of April 29, 2017 held a difficult time for many residents of the greater St. Louis area: rainstorms swelled the tributaries of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, causing disastrous flooding. Many of these same areas had experienced similar damage just over a year prior in the winter...

At St. Francis Community Services’ Southside Center location, Site Director and Therapist Meredith Rataj guides a mom through a small sea of Christmas packages to her family’s gifts. While staff try to determine if the many packages will fit in her car, the mother has other reflections. Looking at...

This 2018 Christmas season, St. Francis Community Services’ Bilingual Youth Program is sharing their musical talents through a holiday concert at Cardinal Ritter Senior Services. As a special treat, children got a visit from Santa at SFCS’ Southside location before the concert, receiving candy canes and sharing what they...

The Southside Center location of St. Francis Community Services is holding its annual Christmas Adopt-a-Family program. Each year individuals, schools, churches, and businesses “adopt” immigrant families we serve to help make their holiday season brighter, providing gifts and household essentials. This year we have more than 170 families in...

The staff attorneys at SFCS Catholic Legal Assistance Ministry recently were contacted by a grandmother, “Lottie,” seeking help in obtaining guardianship of her four-month old grandson who had been in her care since the day the child came home from the hospital. Our client’s daughter, the child’s mother, passed...

“Anna” was widowed at the age of 30 with two small children. Already on the brink of poverty and emotional collapse, her small house was extensively damaged later that same year during the severe flooding of December 2015. Anna was completely overwhelmed, and could not afford to pay for the repairs....