A marathon-running nun has raised $2.6M to feed families in need
Sister Stephanie Baliga was the sixth-fastest freshman runner in the nation at the University of Illinois with dreams of Olympic gold. But when she fractured her foot in her sophomore year of college, her injury set her on a new path, one where she would become a nun at Chicago’s Mission of Our Lady of the Angels.
Baliga still runs, but now her running fuels her faith. For the last 15 years, she has run the Chicago Marathon to raise funds for the MOLA food pantry. Since 2011, she and her team have raised over $2.6 million.
Baliga estimates that their food pantry serves 800 people every week, with the marathon funds being especially critical during the pandemic. This fall, she plans to run her 16th Chicago Marathon with a $500,000 funding goal.
Why is this good news? Chicago’s Mission of Our Lady of the Angels makes a point to serve everyone in its community, regardless of religious affiliation. Father Bob Lombardo, who opened MOLA, said, “We do what we do because we’re Catholic, not because the people we serve are Catholic.”
After 200 years, scientists are re-mapping Lewis and Clark’s historic route ahead of America’s 250th birthday
In 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set off on a two-year expedition to map the North American wilderness, with Sacagawea travelling with them for 16 months. Their historic route covered more than 4,900 miles of terrain — stretching from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to the Pacific Ocean in Oregon — and this year Smithsonian scientists are revisiting it again.
The project, which involves more than 55 academic institutions across the United States, is part of a nationwide effort to understand how the country’s landscape has changed over 200-plus years of human development and environmental changes.
Participating scientist Christine C. Brodsky, a professor at the University of Missouri, said that looking to the past has helped them better understand the future, with the resurvey informing new strategies for “wildlife management and ecological resilience.”
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