FATHER BUTCH WHACKER SCHOLARSHIP
Father Butch Whacker Scholarship of $650
Father Butch Whacker joined the Sisters later in life, after retiring from a military career as a contractor member of the US Navy. As a member of the Sisters, Father Butch was alarmed by the growing numbers of migrant farm workers and young adults in the community who were not being reached by safer sex messages. He expanded the safer sex awareness program to ensure that information was available in a non-judgmental manner. He later said that all the years of hard work would be worth it if he could help prevent just one person from becoming infected with HIV/AIDS.
A recipient of the Father Butch Whacker Scholarship is empathetic to the under served populations of his or her community.
Who Are the Nuns of The Above?
To The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, The Nuns of the Above are members of the Sisterhood who have passed on to the afterlife.
They are our ancestors, our elders, our trailblazers. They are Sisters who have walked the journey before us, living and loving, laughing playfully and fighting fiercely. They are physically gone now but they will never be forgotten. In our hearts they are with us still, walking beside us and guiding us as we stumble through our own journeys.
Some Nuns of the Above are fellow Russian River Sisters. Men and women whom we have known and worked beside, loved and lost. We think of them often and we miss them dearly. There are times when we are at a loss in how to proceed with an issue, but the answers come when they are needed. We see their faces, we hear their voices and we feel their presence as they come to our hearts and minds to give us guidance… whether it be a memory, a thought or a gentle nudge in a certain direction.
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There are also Nuns of the Above who are Nuns of Legend, founders of The International Sisterhood. In the early years they built the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence into a viable organization. They worked with passionate hearts to prepare a foundation for us to follow. They laid a groundwork for us, a model for future ministries to be built upon. Through their work the Sisterhood was expanded and spread around the world. By keeping all of their collective memories alive we continually learn from their examples, examples good and bad, hilarious and heartbreaking, but still rich in lessons to be learned. The retelling of their stories become lessons of life for those willing to listen. Lessons of lives once lived, of ravaged bodies soothed, of broken hearts mended and of fractured communities united.