Property/Facility, Senior Care, Fund Development

BENEDICTINE SISTERS OF FLORIDA – ST. LEO, FLORIDA  

In 1889, five Benedictine Sisters from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania traveled to St. Leo, Florida in response to the need for teachers for the immigrant children in San Antonio and St. Leo.

The Benedictine Sisters of Florida, a cenobitic community of vowed Christian women, seek God in an intensified life of prayer and service. Theirs is a monastic life, a balance of prayer and work, community and solitude – an integration of contemplative living and active ministry on behalf of others.

For over 125 years the Benedictine Sisters of Florida have freely and generously opened their lives to others in hospitality and placed themselves in service to the larger community, responding to the needs of others through their prayers, works of education, mercy, spiritual guidance and stewardship. When the Sisters began a multi-year planning process in 2009, that responsiveness took on a new dimension with the theme “Recall the Past, Celebrate the Present, Embrace the Future.”

Over the course of the project, the community worked closely with Zielinski Companies to strategically study and assess their living options, senior care needs, resources, funding requirements, property, and facilities. Along the way, key elements on their critical path to their goals were identified, including a capital building campaign and the sale of the monastery and chapel. Throughout the process, the community’s mission of responding compassionately to feed the hungers of the people of God and to help all people in their realm of influence to develop their fullest human and spiritual potential remained their focus.

Today, the community’s new home – Holy Name Monastery – has replaced their former over-sized, multi-story structure, laying the foundation for the Sisters to continue the ministry of sharing their human and material resources and their monastic values.

“We are blessed to have had Zielinski Companies guide us through this important stage in our history. The future in our new home looks promising as we continue to serve God and enrich the lives of others through community, hospitality, support, beauty, generosity, love and prayer,” commented Sister Roberta Bailey, O.S.B., Prioress.

The energy within the new monastery is palpable. More importantly, the planning process has strengthened and enhanced the Sisters’ connection with the greater St. Leo/Pasco County community. The complex features a dining room, community space, and chapel that share adjustable walls so that rooms can be expanded and reconfigured, giving the community the flexibility to host special meals, worship events, and social activities such as the monthly Concert Series that has brought the sounds of children’s choirs, gospel groups, vocalists and instrumentalists into the Sisters’ home and to the community.