Donna’s journey to becoming program director for the Catholic Charities Little Flower Assistance Center has been a lifelong passage.
Soon after her birth in Chicago, Illinois, Donna’s family moved to her forever home in Colorado. Here she was raised with her sister and two brothers in a modest brick house in Aurora.
The roots of her passion to help people began early in the 7th grade when Donna joined the Dominick Savio Club while attending St Therese School. One of the club’s activities was visiting a local nursing facility where the group sang and gave gifts to facility residents. Donna’s heart was deeply touched when a 90-year-old woman named Lola asked Donna to come closer and whispered, “Please do not forget me.” After only one more visit from Donna, Lola was called home to God.
As Donna entered her teen years, she joined the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) and became a member of the group’s local council. Among her many CYO activities was helping during the holidays at Ridge Home State Hospital, a residential institution for persons with severe disabilities.
High School graduation found the young humanitarian considering service in the Peace Corps. But God had another plan and introduced her to a young man in Navy blues. A year later, Jay Potter would become her husband and Donna would become the proud mother of three children. In keeping with family tradition, the couple’s son and two daughters also attended St Therese school.
In her first job working for Queen of Peace Transportation, Donna was keeping the books, doing billings and collections, and monitoring the buses that transported kids to the local Catholic elementary and high schools. She also joined a Catholic program called Renew, a spiritual movement within the Church with a primary emphasis on improving participants’ personal relationship with Jesus. During one life-altering training and outreach session, the group visited Sister Michael Mary Eagan (affectionately called “Sister M&M”) at her outreach center on Emporia Street in Aurora – later to be named The Little Flower in honor of St. Therese.
During the introductory meeting at Sister M&M’s, the phone rang. “Go ahead and answer the phone!” Sister ordered. Obediently, Donna picked up the phone. She still laughs when remembering the day she first “Answered the Call,” and she has never stopped since.
Sister Michael Mary soon became Donna’s mentor and encouraged her to volunteer at the Emporia facility. In a few short months, Sister prompted her young apprentice to become involved in the Northeast Denver Montbello community by contacting seven different church congregations and encouraging them to develop a collaborative ministry to provide food to the poor. Within 18 months, Montbello Cooperative Ministries became a full-fledged food bank, and Donna had helped create a host site for the former Share Colorado program.
By 1986, well-versed in needs-based community resource analysis, Donna was hired as the part-time Site Manager for the Catholic Charities Emergency Assistance Center located in a tiny store-front space on Iola Street in Aurora. In addition, she accepted a second part-time position at Aurora Housing as a Senior Service Coordinator at the Fletcher Gardens senior housing apartments. For 11 years, Donna held both part-time positions. Her tenure at Fletcher Gardens often evoked affectionate thoughts of Lola and the long-ago promise not to forget her.
From the Iola office, Catholic Charities Aurora Emergency Assistance Center moved to more accommodating space in 2009. This location housed many community-based programs serving more than 25,000 clients. Services included Victims’ Assistance, Our Lady of Loreto Life Closet, Regis nursing students, MCPN Health Clinic, Kinship Care, Immigration counseling, Employment guidance, Rent and Utility assistance, and Transportation aid.
Despite subsequent closure of the Potomac location in 2011, God intervened to assure that His people did not go hungry. Answering the call to fulfill God’s vision, Donna engaged a committed group of volunteers from the community to embrace that vision and create a new location to serve the less fortunate.
In a humble building on the corner of 14th and Lansing that was generously donated by the Knights of Columbus, the new site opened in September 2013. Named the Little Flower Assistance Center in honor of Sister M&M, the emerging charity developed with support from the City of Aurora, several local Catholic Churches, the Denver Foundation, and the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati (Sister M&M’s Motherhouse). By December 2013, the fledgling agency was back home under the sponsorship wing of Catholic Charities.