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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Sister Isolina Ferré
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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Sister Isolina Ferré
SISTER M. ISOLINA FERRé
Awarded by
President Bill Clinton
August 11, 1999
Founder and chief executive officer of Centros Sor Isolina Ferré, four community service centers in Puerto Rico, Sister M. Isolina Ferré first gained international recognition in the late 1950s and 1960s for her mediation efforts with youth gangs in Brooklyn, New York. Today, her centers operate clinics and programs to empower the disadvantaged, teach them self-reliance, and lift them out of poverty. For her work with the poor in Puerto Rico, Appalachia, and New York, she received the 1989 Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism.
President Bill Clinton thanks Sister Isolina Ferre after awarding her the Medal of Freedom at the White House August 11, 1999. Isolina was given the award for her mediation efforts with youth gangs in Brooklyn in the 1950's and 1960's and for establishing four community centers in Puerto Rico. The awards were established by President Kennedy in 1963 for outstanding service to the United States. President Gerald Ford is in background.
Remembering Sor Isolina, Angel of Ponce's poor This great Puerto Rican humanitarian died three years ago por Claudia Pérez Rodríguez claudia@cronicasboricuas.com
 Sept. 17, 2003 -- "Sister Ferré, teaches people to see the best in themselves and their communities. With her conviction that all people are equal in the sight of God, Sister M. Isolina Ferré has combined her deep religious faith with her compassionate and creative advocacy for the disadvantaged. Through the centers she founded in her native Puerto Rico and her work in New York City and Appalachia, she has empowered individuals and families by helping them recognize their dignity and abilities. Emphasizing the value of education, self-reliance, and meaningful employment, she helps young people realize their potential. With her good heart and selfless spirit, Sister Isolina Ferré has given many the gift of hope and the promise of a fulfilling future."
These were the words pronounced in 1999 by former U.S. president Bill Clinton, right before bestowing Sister Isolina Ferré with the Presidential Medal of Freedom , the most prestigious award conferred in the United States, to civilians whose lives have set an exceptional example of service to humanity. They summarize what most distinguished this Puerto Rican nun's life: a total surrender to the mission of improving the future of the poor. Since her youth until her last days, her gentle heart poured out its altruism, compassion and goodness among economically disadvantaged people of different regions of the United States and Puerto Rico.
Isolina Ferré Aguayo was born in Ponce in 1914, in a very well renowned Puerto Rican family. Some of her close relatives are former Puerto Rico Governor Luis A. Ferré, famous writer Rosario Ferré, and El Nuevo Día newspaper's owner Antonio Luis Ferré. At age 21, Sister Isolina had already joined the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity, an order that aids the poor, by providing medical care and searching for ways to improve the lives of families, penal populations, and at-risk children.
Sister Isolina spent approximately half of her missionary life in the United States. There, she created clinics, counseling services programs, and social assistance centers for the needy in Appalachia. As part of her work in this country, she was also involved in helping immigrant populations in Massachusetts, and in programs that aimed to better the quality of life of low income neighborhoods in the Big Apple. One of her greatest achievements in New York City was that of getting gangs of Puerto Ricans and African Americans to resolve disputes without using violence.
She spent the rest of her life in her native land, where she lived from 1969 until her death at 85 on August 3rd, 2000. The sad panorama of poverty that she saw in La Playa de Ponce is what inspired her to abandon the idea of retirement, the reason for her return to the island. Sister Isolina was deeply moved by the economical deprivation and the high level of school absenteeism that she perceived among this sector's residents.
Wishing to revitalize "La Playa" and willing to help restore a sense of dignity and hope in its inhabitants, she began taking the necessary steps to create what would later become the Sor Isolina Ferré Centers. Her first task concerning her new mission would be to meet with the leaders of the region's communities in order to become aware of the neighborhoods' most urgent problems and needs.
Along with other sisters of her order, Mother Isolina began her work of improving the quality of life of some of Ponce's poorest residents, by providing counseling services in what would be the first institution to carry her name: the Sor Isolina Ferré Orientation Center.
Nowadays, there are Sor Isolina Ferré Centers not only in Ponce but also in San Juan and Guayama. These organizations provide counseling, educational and medical services. They assist mostly children, adolescents, poor families, disabled children, single mothers, runaways, parents that need child day care services, adults that wish to learn how to read and write, unemployed persons, and school deserters.
These charitable institutions offer instruction in sewing, agriculture, accountant and administrative assistance, nursing, data processing, and computer usage and programming.
Those who are affiliated to the Sor Isolina Centers also have the opportunity of receiving cooking classes, recreational activities, tutorial services, and orientations about skills that will help them succeed in the job market. This non-governmental organization also promotes artistic expression within the economically disadvantaged communities that it serves, mostly by way of the Artesanías Tabaiba Program and through photography workshops. Tabaiba students are trained in the creation and marketing of crafts, and are aided in the process of preparing themselves for taking the high school equivalency General Educational Development test.
Something very special about these centers is that they are the only Puerto Rican non-governmental organizations that offer so many different types of services aimed at combating poverty and dependency. They are like a glass of water given to a country thirsty of social justice, where according to the 2000 census, almost half of the population lives under the levels of poverty; the unemployment rate is approximately 13%; and the per capita income is only $8,185.
Sister Isolina will always be remembered in the lands that she served. In the United States, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1999); the Rockefeller Public Service Award (1980); and honoris causa doctorates from Marymount College (1975), St. Francis College (1981), and Fairleigh Dickinson University (1982). Puerto Rico bestowed her with the Luis Muñoz Marín Medal (2003), and with honorary doctorates from Interamerican University at San Germán (1979) and Ponce Catholic University (1974). We think, nonetheless, that the most important reward for Sister Isolina must have been the satisfaction of seeing the fruits of her missionary work in the histories of those to whom she dedicated her impressive life as an ambassador of social justice. The "Angel of La Playa", as she was affectionately nicknamed in Puerto Rico, is a star, whose legacy will forever illuminate the history of the poor communities that she so much loved.
###* Photo taken from the Web site of the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity (www.msbt.org).
President Bill Clinton congratulates Medal of Freedom Recipient Sister Isolina Ferre
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August 3, 2000
PONCE, Puerto Rico (AP) -- Roman Catholic Sister M. Isolina Ferre, a U.S. Medal of Freedom recipient who used her wealthy family's influence to create charities, died Thursday at age 85, a family spokesman said. Flags flew at half-staff in the capital in her honor.
Ferre was being treated for respiratory problems at the Women's Hospital in Ponce, a city in southern Puerto Rico, spokesman Jose Serra said. An official cause of death was not released.
President Clinton awarded Ferre the Medal of Freedom, the highest U.S. civilian honor, in August 1999 for founding centers for delinquent youth as well as clinics and empowerment centers in Puerto Rico, New York City and the Appalachia region in the eastern United States.
"Her passionate fight, for more than 60 years, against poverty, violence and despair earned her many awards and countless tributes from all around the world," said Clinton in a statement that praised Ferre for having "transformed ravaged neighborhoods."
"Her lifetime of selfless commitment to others will remain her greatest legacy," Clinton said.
Ferre gained international recognition in the late 1950s and 1960s for her mediation efforts with Puerto Rican youth gangs in Brooklyn. She later returned home to found her first community aid center in Ponce. In 1988, Ferre established Ponce's Trinity College, a vocational school.
Ferre was born in Ponce in 1914 into one of Puerto Rico's most prominent families. The Ferre family own two leading newspapers and her brother, former Gov. Luis A. Ferre, founded the ruling New Progressive Party and Ponce Art Museum.
Ferre decided to become a nun in the Missionary Servants of the Holy Trinity order during a visit to Havana, Cuba in 1935.
She worked in the poor mining communities of Appalachia and with immigrants in Massachusetts before attending St. Joseph College for Women and Fordham University, both in New York City.
She is survived by her brother. There was no information about funeral arrangements.
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Medal History
