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Chapter I :
Baltimore in 1927

Chapter II :
A Very Simple Beginning

Chapter III :
After the Great Depression and World War II

Chapter IV :
Our First Resident Pastor, Father William Neligan

Chapter V :
A New Church Is Designed

Chapter VI :
Archbishop Keough Dedicates the New Church

Chapter VII :
A School Is Opened and a Tradition of Education Is Begun

Chapter VIII :
The “Raise the Roof” Campaign Expands the School

Chapter IX :
“Itıs Not Just a School, But a Way of Life”

Chapter X :
“Renew”

Chapter XI :
Under Father William Burke Community Activism Is Developed

Chapter XII :
A Spiritual Presence In the Community

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XI
Under Father William Burke Community Activism Is Developed
STF92B_1.jpg As Northeast Baltimore integrated, Father Burke wanted St. Francis of Assisi to be a place where all are welcome. As the Director of the Campaign for Human Development, he came to appreciate community activist Doris Mae Johnson, who in 1976 had founded CHUM, the Coldstream-Homestead-Montebello organization that serves neighborhoods directly to the south. “She was like Mother Earth,” Father Burke said of Johnson, who, when she became a Catholic in the early 1980s, joined St. Francis of Assisi Church. At the same time, the parish started a pantry that distributed food to the needy, and the ladies of the Sodality supplemented “Our Daily Bread” with a casserole program. When Johnson opened the Quality of Life Center on Harford Road in 1996, Father Richard Bozzelli attended to the legal details. Before he was ordained and served St. Francis of Assisi, Father Bozzelli had been an attorney. Doris Johnson passed on in 1999, but her spirit lives in the parish’s Vacation Bible School and its Christmas Basket program.