Speaking at the launch of the Sargent Shriver Center for Faith in Action at Don Bosco Cristo Rey High School in Takoma Park, Maryland, on Oct. 22, 2026, Sister Norma Pimentel encouraged students to follow the example of the devout Catholic who was the founding director of the Peace Corps and the architect of War on Poverty programs including Head Start, VISTA and Upward Bound.
“Sargent Shriver was an extraordinary person,” said Sister Norma, the executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, who said Shriver found the presence of God in his daily life and work, and that enabled him to say “yes” to serving those in need. “He was a leader that allowed himself to be led by God,” she said.
Sister Norma, a member of the Missionaries of Jesus religious order, has led caring outreach to migrants seeking refuge at the border of Texas with Mexico for more than three decades. She was named as one of TIME magazine’s Women of the Year for 2026 and one of TIME’s 100 most influential people of 2020.
“We have a responsibility to speak up and do our part… That is how we make God present in our time,” Sister Norma said.
Don Bosco Cristo Rey High School is a college preparatory, coed school serving students from low-income families in the Washington, D.C., area that is sponsored by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington and the Salesians of Don Bosco. The school features an innovative Corporate Work Study Program, where students gain experience working at leading Washington-area businesses, organizations and institutions and help pay for part of their education costs. Mark K. Shriver – one of five children of Sargent Shriver and Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the founder of the Special Olympics – has served as the first lay president of Don Bosco Cristo Rey since 2021.
At the evening reception, Joel Littlepage, the director of the Sargent Shriver Center for Faith in Action at the high school, welcomed guests to the first Sargent Shriver Day there. The center exists to “form good people for good work in the world through Catholic faith in action as modeled in the life and legacy of Sargent Shriver,” he said.
He praised Sargent Shriver as “one of the most significant public servants in the history of the United States,” adding, “Sarge lived out the Catholic social principle of solidarity, channeling his energy and platform to the benefit of the poor, the unrepresented, the disenfranchised, the oppressed, the disabled, (and) the forgotten.”
Littlepage, who also serves as the coordinator of youth ministry at Don Bosco Cristo Rey, said it is an honor for him to help form students shaped by Sargent Shriver’s legacy of faith in action. The center will seek to accomplish its mission through service and spiritual formation around service, through leadership development, and by integrating the principle of service as faith in action into the curriculum there. He noted that the next day, the nearly 420 students there would participate in the first schoolwide Shriver Service Corps Day of Service.
That evening’s speaker, Sister Norma Pimentel, “stands as a beacon of light for us today, of a vibrant life of public service, of public love,” Littlepage said.
Offering the prayer at the Shriver Center’s launch was Msgr. John Enzler, Sargent Shriver’s former pastor at Our Lady of Mercy Parish in Potomac, Maryland.
Msgr. John Enzler – the mission advocate of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington who formerly served as the president and CEO of that agency – said he believes that “it’s service that brings kids back to church, that allows them to see God in action.”
Noting what he learned from the example of Sargent Shriver, Msgr. Enzler said, “I’m grateful for a man who taught me about service, commitment and love for others.”
‘God is calling us to do our part’
In her talk, Sister Norma said she “came to discover my voice early” in her work as a woman religious, as her order staffed a shelter to serve the influx of immigrants from El Salvador and other Latin American nations fleeing violence and terrible conditions in their home countries. She noted how one man showed her his hands – he had been tortured, and his fingernails had been pulled out.
Under Sister Norma’s leadership, the Catholic Charities Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Texas, has provided food, shelter, clothing and other help to more than 500,000 migrants since it opened in 2014.
In a discussion with Don Bosco Cristo Rey students, Sister Norma was asked how she remained hopeful. “When I encounter families and their suffering, it motivates me,” she said, describing a visit to a detention center in 2014 that was full of hundreds of immigrant children. She sought to pray with the children, who were crying.
“I just started to cry with them. They prayed with me… The agents were looking at us, crying as well,” Sister Norma said, noting how one officer said, “Thank you, sister, you helped us realize their humanity.”
Sister Norma said people should have a responsibility to recognize the human dignity of others as a priority in their lives, which she said is more important than any policy or law.
The TIME magazine article recognizing her as one of the 2026 Women of the Year noted that Catholic Charities center is serving poor, elderly and homeless people in that community as the number of immigrant asylum seekers has fallen “to nearly zero.”
Asked about what the situation is like now at the border, Sister Norma said the border is effectively closed, but now with the government’s policy of mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, some immigrants who have lived and worked in that area for many years have been rounded up, sent to detention centers and deported.
Catholic Charities is trying to help the family members who remain, she said. “People are very afraid. They don’t work. They’re afraid to go to the supermarkets, even to church… It’s a very difficult time for the community in south Texas,” Sister Norma said.
Asked by a student how she continues to do her good work in challenging conditions, Sister Norma said, “I wake up every day at 4 in the morning. I’m not a morning person.” She starts each day in silent prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. “It’s so important to have the presence of God to guide me and lead me… to help make the world better,” she said.
Another student asked Sister Norma what advice she had for young people about serving others.
“You’re never too young, and you’re never too old” to serve others, Sister Norma said. She added, “No matter how young you are, God is calling us to do our part… We must always turn to God to find out what that is.”
Sister Norma noted how when she was in high school, her counselor told her that she wasn’t college material.
“I said, ‘I’m going,’” Sister Norma said, and then she offered words of encouragement to the Don Bosco Cristo Rey students. “Don’t let anybody hold you back. You can be a giant in the world today. The world needs you,” she said.
Sister Norma also addressed a student assembly there that afternoon, and afterward she was presented with the Shriver Servant Award. When construction for the school’s new Athletics Center is completed next year, a tree will be planted there in her honor.
Students describe the impact of serving others
At the student assembly and then at the evening reception launching the Sargent Shriver Center for Faith in Action, Don Bosco Cristo Rey students who won Shriver Speech Awards recited those winning speeches.
In her speech, Monica Trejo, the freshman awardee, emphasized looking at “service hours” as an opportunity to serve others rather than as fulfilling a requirement. Trejo noted how she volunteers every Wednesday to help prepare children for First Communion, and doesn’t count that time as service hours.
“When I see these children asking questions about their faith, growing closer to God, and looking to me as an example, I realize that what I am doing is much bigger than a number,” she said, adding, “I get to watch their faith grow. I get to see their excitement. I get to see their smiles. And knowing that I helped them grow closer to God means more to me than any service hour I could ever complete.”
Noting how Sargent Shriver emphasized the importance of serving others, Trejo said, “As Catholics, we are called to do the same. Jesus spent His life serving others… He served because He loved.”
Emphasizing that “there is a difference between doing service and being a servant,” Trejo concluded her talk saying that service is about more than meeting a requirement.
Then Diana Ventura and Bryan Perez from the class of 2027 described their experience with 10 other rising seniors from Don Bosco Cristo Rey sent by the Sargent Shriver Center for Faith in Action on a service trip to El Salvador this past summer as the first-ever members of the school’s Shriver Service Corps. They said their days were marked by prayer, sharing, and serving others at different worksites.
Those students also made a pilgrimage to where St. Oscar Romero was martyred in 1980 while celebrating Mass.
“During the civil war in El Salvador, he spoke against violence and defended the poor and persecuted,” Perez said, adding that the people of El Salvador clung to their faith during that violent time, “trusting God had not abandoned them. Romero showed that following Christ means standing with the poor and defending human dignity, even when it was dangerous.”
Ventura noted how during their service trip to El Salvador, the students also made home visits to meet with and listen to residents and understand the challenges of everyday life there. “It felt discouraging at times to see so much pain, but our service to the community reminded us that there is freedom in serving others. We can’t solve all of the world’s problems, but we can spread hope through serving others with our faith and conviction to help others,” she said.
Jasson Cabrera, the Shriver Speech Award winner for the junior class, emphasized Sargent Shriver’s legacy, saying “he understood that charity is the first step and justice is the end.”
Cabrera said the poor face structural problems that can be remedied by government actions, and he described the example of a mother selling street vendor tamales who “depends on a perpetually underfunded and broken public transit system for her family’s survival,” often returning home too late to help her children with homework and get the sleep she needs.
Concluding his talk, Cabrera said, “Let this be the generation of idealists who look at the system and state that poverty is not inherent to society. Let us begin now, uplifting one family, one community, one policy at a time.”
Jason Portillo, the Shriver Speech Award recipient for the senior class, spoke about environmental injustice and the need to defend human dignity. He described the example of Brandywine, an historically Black community in Prince George’s County, Maryland.
“Imagine living in a town where state regulators have systematically permitted four major fossil fuel power plants, an extensive gravel mining operation, and heavy industrial waste infrastructure all within just miles of your home,” he said.
The emissions from those industries can lead to depressed home values and elevated rates of asthma, cardiovascular issues and chronic respiratory illnesses, Portillo said. He quoted Pope Francis who said, “The cry of the earth and the cry of the poor cannot be separated.”
As the evening reception concluded, an award was presented to the Shriver family. A tree will be planted in Sargent Shriver’s honor when the construction of the Athletics Center at Don Bosco Cristo Rey High School is completed.
“Your family continues to embody the legacy of Sargent Shriver, because you put your faith into action every day,” Jason Portillo said.
Accepting the award, Timothy Shriver – the chairman of Special Olympics – praised the leadership of his brother Mark at Don Bosco Cristo Rey High School, telling the students that “this guy believes in you big time.” He said that since Mark Shriver began leading that school five years ago, he found a community that allowed him to reflect his commitment to his faith and his passion for helping young people.
Shriver Service Corps Day of Service
The next day, nearly 500 students and faculty from Don Bosco Cristo Rey High School fanned out to 18 service sites across the Washington, D.C., area for the first Shriver Service Corps Day of Service, an initiative of the newly launched Sargent Shriver Center for Faith in Action at the school. The students volunteered at service sites dealing with environmental stewardship, hunger relief and food security, education and youth development, disability and inclusion services, senior and elder care, and homeless care and housing.
“We hope that this is only the beginning of a movement of service for the common good here at this school and beyond,” said Joel Littlepage, the center’s director.
