ABOUT ELIZABETH MINISTRIES
Founded in 2019 in SF after a very powerful Rosary Sunday. After listening to a retelling of the Visitation, and beautiful rendition of Ave Maria, the fire in my heart lit the lightbulb in my brain. Hearing the words "nothing is impossible with God," while listening to the Gospel, I suddenly saw all the women who felt like they were alone in facing the impossible; struggling with eating, not eating, distorted self image, and troubling senses of self worth. The Holy Spirit set a charge before me to free all the women who had come into my life, been huge steps in my formation as a Catholic, but also had come to me individually, sharing their struggles with disordered eating, and heartache. Elizabeth Ministries serves to build women up and out of the sadness and brokenness that the world provides.
ABOUT THE FOUNDER
I was born and raised Catholic. My family did CCD, and all the milestone sacraments with pretty dresses, and flower crowns, and fancy parties and All Saints Day costumes. My brother and I were altar servers, even serving at 7:30am mass for the old retirees at Ft. Belvoir, in Northern Virginia where we lived, some Sundays. While we grew up in the church, I wouldn’t say we grew up with the church.
High school and college were very hard times for me. I was lonely, I was broken, I was looking for control in all the wrong places. Because I was so caught up in things that didn’t matter — my sorority, my image, my unwavering belief that being the most accomplished would make me the best — it was going to take a very special and specific kind of run in for me to change course. Through God’s grace, that exact thing happened, and slowly, over the course of years, I straightened out my relationship with Jesus, and started on a journey toward walking in the light of Christ.
One day, during the mass for the Visitation, and Elizabeth and Mary’s encounters in the early parts of the Gospel, it came full circle for me that all the women who have most greatly impacted my life have hugely, and privately, struggled in fully realizing the uncompromising self worth Jesus promised us by way of His death on the cross. Women I know have quietly sat, feeling isolated, in their struggles with eating, with self image, and with personal connection to women who are bearing the same burdens. I decided this was a cause worth championing, and here we are.
I currently sit on the Advancement Leadership Council for the Western Dominican Province, and served as the Executive Producer for St. Dominic’s Young Adult’s fundraiser on behalf of their Lima Center Homeless Outreach. My best friend and I are currently chairing virtual after-mass coffee minutes with St. Dominic’s church, in SF, where I live and balance my main hustles, working in tech and sampling avocado toasts.