Eucharistic Missionaries Create a Field of Dreams

NEW ORLEANS, LA – May 14, 2008-- “Play Ball!” The Eucharistic Missionaries of St. Dominic waited 15 years to hear this shout.  On April 19, the city of Covington, LA dedicated the Covington Recreational Complex on 36 acres of land donated by the EMD congregation. Children in brand new uniforms took to the three well equipped fields that afternoon. The sisters are sure that because they built it, children can come, enjoy the land, the fresh air and summer fun.

The Congregation voted at their 1993 Chapter to sell 172 acres to developers and to donate the rest of their acres of wooded property to the City of Covington for a recreational park.
 
Property analysis, zoning requirements, funding and wetlands mitigation issues required years of work. Officials from the City and EMD President Dorothy Trosclair, OP, broke ground for the park on November 29, 2006.

In 1954 the EMDs purchased the property which is 40 miles north of New Orleans.  Regina Coeli first housed novices, then children in a Head Start Program and thousands of teens and adults at a retreat center.

The Sisters, long aware of the needs of a nearby impoverished section of Covington, were key to bringing Habitat for Humanity into the area.  Their land donated for the recreational park accessed by Martin de Porres Road, and their civic leadership serve as a lasting legacy of the congregation to their former neighbors.