Sister Louise Kearns, SND
Co-Founder, Julie’s Family Learning Program
Director of Adult Services

Sister Louise Kearns, SND is an educator as well as co-founder of Julie’s Family Learning Program. In 1959, she entered the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Education and Biology from Emmanuel College and later earned a Masters degree in education and counseling from Antioch College. In 1969, Sr. Louise moved into the D Street Housing Project, to live among the people she worked to help. She devoted seven years of her career to the instruction of junior high school students in Boston and began a summer youth program called “Fun in the Sun.”

In 1973, Sr. Louise began to perform pastoral counseling sessions among her D Street neighbors and became more attuned to the complex needs of the female-headed households in Boston. Her experience with these families prompted her to develop an Adult Learning Program in 1979. The mothers gathered in the upper sacristy for intensive nurturing, educational services, and peer support, while their young children received quality day care in the lower sacristy. The following year, Sister Louise partnered with Sr. Jean Sullivan to create Julie’s Family Learning Program.

Sister Louise remains awed by the program participants’ strength and courage as they have attempted to respond in productive ways to the myriad of challenges that have surfaced in their daily lives. Sister Louise views Julie’s Family Learning Program as a safe haven that encourages each woman to formulate goals for herself and her family.

Sister Jean Sullivan, SND
Co-Founder, Julie’s Family Learning Program
Director of Children Services

Sister Jean Sullivan, SND is an educator and co-founder of Julie’s Family Learning Program. She entered the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in 1957. Upon completing her degree at Emmanuel College, she began teaching first grade in communities throughout Massachusetts, including Somerville, Salem, Danvers, Lawrence, and Dorchester. During her summer months, she worked with migrants in New Jersey and Delaware. With these experiences of teaching young children, she encountered many children who had poor self-esteem and little self-confidence. Eager to learn more effective ways to serve these young children, Sister Jean evaluated various teaching philosophies and discovered that the Montessori method was most congruous to her own belief system. With the ultimate goal of helping young people and their families grow into healthy, capable adults, she earned her certification as a Montessori teacher from Cornell University.

In 1974 Sister Jean and Sister Pat O’MaIley joined forces to respond to the great need for comprehensive pre-school services in the South Boston community. Together, they established a program called Julie’s Children’s House, named after the foundress of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur and Maria Montessori’s first school, called, “Children’s House.” The first site was in Manan Hall at the corner of A Street and West Broadway, though the program later moved to the Condon Community School on D Street. Julie’s Children’s House not only offered a Montessori preschool to the children of low-income families, it also provided their mothers with monthly home visits and educational sessions on effective parenting skills.

In 1980 Sister Jean joined forces with Sr. Louise Kearns to create what is now Julie’s Family Learning Program. Sister Jean often marvels as she watches the children and their mothers blossom, learn to trust, and begin to assume control over their own lives. It is her hope that Julie’s Family Learning Program will continue to be a source of stability and encouragement for mothers and their children.