By Voice staff

For nearly 50 years, Sister Marygrace Puchacz, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Third Order of St. Francis, has ministered to the physical, psychological, spiritual and social needs of the developmentally disabled.

Sister Marygrace Puchacz

Her most recent project is the Center for Well Being at the newly renovated Salvio Pacheco Adobe in Concord. Here, developmentally disabled adults can find exercise, meditation and healing rooms along with a back garden that includes a Spanish-style fountain, a large patio, a labyrinth and a meditation garden.

The adobe’s second floor contains office and meeting rooms for East Bay Services to the Developmentally Disabled which Sister Marygrace founded in 1974 and where she serves as executive director.

Her ministry began soon after she started teaching elementary school in Cleveland, Ohio. There she helped launch the first school administered by her religious community to address the educational needs of developmentally disabled children.

Later while working as an elementary school teacher in Mississippi, she taught developmentally disabled children after school and in the evening.

Sister Marygrace traveled to Northern California to complete her master’s degree from San Francisco State University. Then she returned to her hometown to set up St. Joseph Center, a diocesan school for the developmentally disabled in the Diocese of Cleveland.

In 1968, she was drawn back to California, this time to Contra Costa County, where she went to work in the so-called “Blue Goose camps” of migrant workers. While working in the county she helped launch the first Head Start program there through Catholic Charities of the East Bay.

She became director of Catholic Charities’ services to the developmentally disabled, and in 1974 she founded East Bay Services to the Developmentally Disabled.

Today the program includes Evergreen Day Program in San Leandro, Concord House, Concord Residential Club, the Open Door-Work Transition Program and other education, personal development, leisure and vocational training services for developmentally disabled adults in Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

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