Nun celebrates 60th year in order

By MAURA POSSLEY

MANATEE COUNTY -A slight and soft woman, her voice still echoes the sound of her homeland in southern Ireland.

Her gentleness and simplicity are not to be confused with her power to stand up for the disadvantaged.

The faint brogue she still carries from her life in Tralee overshadows her fluency in Spanish and Creole.

From her days teaching in Massachusetts, New York and in the South during the time of segregation, Sister Nora Brick has come to find herself at home in Bradenton. And here she has found love with a new people - the migrants.

Known to many as the Mother Teresa of Manatee County, Brick has been a consistent and compassionate voice for the migrant community.

"Without question, she sacrifices her life and her time to meet the needs of others," said Pat Glass, a former Manatee County commissioner. "She's the quiet, peaceful influence in the community who gets things done."

The people she works for speak of her as someone who will listen. Her supporters know her as someone to go for action.

"People support her regardless of what their religious beliefs are," said Linda Cinque, a board member of Bradenton's Stillpoint House of Prayer, which Brick founded. "They support her because they believe in her and her work. It's almost mystical."

It is her way of following in the steps of St. Francis of Assisi, who was Brick's inspiration to join the Franciscans in 1947.

"If people are unjustly treated, we have to take extraordinary means to protect them," Brick said. "It's not anything new."

This year, Brick celebrates her 60th anniversary in the Order of St. Francis.

"She has been an inspiration and a role model for all of us because of her great love for the disadvantaged, particularly for the farmworkers and the migrant people," said Luz Corcuera, an activist in the Latino community here. "She not only looks after their spiritual needs but also their basic needs."

Since moving to Manatee County in the 1980s, Brick has formed Project Light, a nonprofit literacy center teaching immigrants English.

She created Stillpoint, a small building in Bradenton that holds Bible study for English, Spanish and Creole speakers. Stillpoint was born, Brick said, as a place for migrants to go for solitude and prayer.

It is also a place where migrants can collect food and clothing if they have none. Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in Spanish are also offered.

Brick also spearheads a yearly fundraiser through Stillpoint to buy a pair of shoes for every migrant child before the start of the school year.

"I feel they have a great desire for God," Brick said of the migrant community. "The most beautiful teaching subject you could want is teaching the Bible."

With Corcuera, Brick in 2003 set out to find homes for dozens of families - mostly Latino - who were forced from trailer homes here. The pair sought to ensure no families were left displaced and that the minority families received fair housing opportunities.

It is cases such as these when friends and colleagues say Brick, a quiet woman, voices her unwavering support for the disadvantaged.

Like when Brick rapped on the door of a slumlord and told him to clean up his act, said Glass, who will speak at Brick's anniversary dinner next month.

"She'll turn over every stone to get assistance for them," she said. "She made no bones about it."

The national debate on illegal immigration across the country, including the migrant population Brick serves, is left out of her work, Cinque said. Instead, her focus is coming to their aid.

"We live in a world that's getting very cold," she said. "People are not as understanding and empathetic. Sister transcends everything."