The funds from Trinity will go toward those returning from prison in the greater New York Area. The MacLeans’ gift will match an earlier anonymous grant and go toward “capacity building” and research that evaluates the model’s effectiveness so that it can be replicated in other congregations.

Lightburn said she and her colleagues have been working with New York-area faith-based organizations to run life skills programs that help participants navigate life transitions and gain self-sufficiency while also offering a sense of belonging.

One vital aspect of the program, said Lightburn, centers on a home-cooked dinner with participants enjoying a meal with staff, volunteers and mentors. The group shares their experiences, hopes, and goals while around the dinner table; they form bonds that lead to trust.

“A program like this really represents the best of what GSS is about,” said Debra McPhee, PhD, dean of GSS. “It involves, research, student engagement, social justice, interdisciplinary collaboration, and service with society’s most disenfranchised.”

The program typically involves twice-weekly skill-building workshops on setting goals, preparing for the future, and dealing with traumatic pasts as they try to make make sense of their life stories.

A recent meal and workshop at the Reformed Church of Bronxville brought Coming Home alumni together with women who were just starting the program.

Volunteer Casmira Stricker, who worked for 44 years at Fordham before retiring, made the group meatballs and pasta, garlic bread, salad, and homemade carrot cake. The meal was served in a jovial atmosphere, but was anchored by participants shared stories of trauma and recovery.

The alumni laughed and hugged each other, almost all used the term “grateful” to describe the program, as well as the support they continue to get from each other, even after graduation from the program last spring.

“I usually kept everything to myself and everybody else was doing the talking,” said Ruthie. “What opened me up was story time, when we had to tell our story. Then I had my breakdown and ever since I got a big load off of me. I let go of that load.”

“We all have a history,” said Carol. “I don’t care what happened—I love them no matter what.”

A 2012 Beck Institute study found that the program significantly improved participants’ sense of well-being. Between 80 to 85 percent completed the program.

As the Bronxville evening drew to a close, Lightburn handed out survey forms for the participants to fill out—a continuation of the 2012 research.

Thanks to the funding, the institute will determine the cost-effectiveness of Coming Home across diverse areas— from the leafy suburbs to the dense urban areas.

But while the study focuses on results for the formerly incarcerated, Lightburn said that the volunteers leave the program transformed as well. She described Wall Street executives who began to empathize with men who had spent most of their lives in prison. It’s a notion that struck a chord with donor Kathy MacLean.

MacLean said her mother worked as a nurse and closely identified with her patients. She noted that many of the program’s participants wouldn’t be there if they had access to good mental health care before they became incarcerated, homeless, or abused. She added that since this is the year that Pope Francis declared as Jubilee Year of Mercy, there is no better time than the present to try to empathize.

“I hope this year opens more people’s hearts to forgiveness, to the people around them, and to people they would’ve dismissed out of hand, because they represent ‘the other’” she said.

“When it comes to the materialistic part of the holiday season, I can’t handle it,” she said. “I’ve changed.”

Lightburn recently flew into New York from Haiti, where she is helping Dominicans of Haitian ancestry who have been pouring over the border into Haiti from the Dominican Republic. In 2013 the Dominican government ordered that the group must prove Dominican lineage with ancestral birth certificates dating from before 1929, or be expelled. An estimated 200,000 people may become stateless.

Lightburn said that the mere act of traveling home for the holidays has taken on a new meaning.

On returning to New York, Lightburn sat on a panel held at Fordham to discuss the crisis. Before the event, she checked in with colleagues from the Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs (IIHA), where she is pursuing her master’s degree, and then met with her mother, Anita Lightburn, PhD, a professor in the Graduate School of Social Service and director of the Beck Institute on Religion and Poverty.

The two discussed their shared interest in helping those in need—Professor Lightburn through social work and Kara Lightburn through humanitarian aid—though Professor Lightburn continually deflected attention from her work to that of her daughter.

“Being on the ground and doing the work that Kara does is a whole different thing than me organizing people to understand social justice issues and respond,” she said.

While she has seen her share of human frailty over the years, the professor recognized that her daughter’s experience in Haiti is distinct. Kara began going to Haiti to help out after the 2010 earthquake. That year, she founded Social Tap, a New York-based nonprofit providing services through Haitian partnerships.

“She’s like her father in that she really goes out on the edge, has a vision for what could be, and then she goes ahead and does it,” Lightburn said. “She’s never taken a salary, never funded herself. Everything she gets she gives away.”

But Kara said she learned how to organize disparate parties toward a common goal by observing her mother and her colleagues.

“Because of my mother, I was always surrounded by amazing, powerful women who were intellectually challenging,” she said. “I learned how to tap into the university systems because I grew up in them and learned how to work with multiple institutions.”

Her first time on the ground in a disaster came after a friend was killed in the Sri Lanka tsunami. She said she felt “compelled to go.” She raised money through her college classmates. Professor Lightburn recalls it as a harrowing time for her as a mother, particularly after Kara told her that gun-toting rebels greeted her at the airport.

“I called colleagues who assured me that the areas where she was going were not too violent,” Professor Lightburn said. “When she called me later she was helping rebuild a fishing village and she said, ‘I’ve never been happier in my whole life.’”

After the earthquake in Haiti, Kara Lightburn had to go beyond helping people attain basic needs, like shelter, food, and water. She also had to arrange security for women and children who were being raped amid the chaos. Among the victims was a 4-year-old girl.

“We worked with the camp leaders and organized security committees,” she said. “We also made sure the victims knew that we would pursue every line of justice for the perpetrators.”

Kara Lightburn said that while her mother’s work differs from her own, each one’s work boils down to strengthening communities.

“Community is community. It’s the same if it’s international or local,” she said.

“The other thing we absolutely share is the belief in the dignity of everybody,” said Professor Lightburn. “We’re really not that different; each of us brings different gifts.”

“But the number one thing we do in both of our professions is listen to people and walk with them,” said Kara Lightburn.

“And act with them,” added Professor Lightburn.

“It’s one thing to provide therapy. It’s another thing to provide community,” said Anita Lightburn, Ph.D., director of the Beck Institute on Religion and Poverty.

Lightburn was recently awarded a $300,000 grant to help faith communities empower homeless populations reintegrating into society. Her research has shown that the Life Skill Empowerment Programs (LSEP) not only help the homeless, but it also helps volunteers understand the brutal realities that spawn homelessness.

Catholic Charities and Interfaith Assembly for Homelessness and Housing developed the empowerment programs more than 25 years ago, but, until Lighburn’s study, there was no research to determine the program’s success. The three-month program starts with the simplest of methods—pairing those on the outskirts of society with a community of volunteers who prepare, and then share, a meal with them.

Lightburn first heard about the program five years ago at a Beck-sponsored conference held at Fordham called “Capacity Building in Faith Communities.” Although the program primarily operates out of faith communities, it is adaptable to any organization and is nondenominational. Most communities that take on the program infuse it with that community’s personality.

The trust begins at the dinner table, said John Delfs, M.D. Dr. Delfs runs an iteration of the program for the recently incarcerated at Riverside Church on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. During the first year of the program, parishioner Elaine Thompson agreed to take on the role of cook.

Thompson had soup kitchen experience. She banned paper plates and buffets. That’s what the populations experience in prisons and shelters, she told Dr. Delfs.

Instead, she insisted on china, white tablecloths, and silverware. Dinner would be served family style, something that some of the participants had never experienced—ever.

“Doing this was something that said ‘You are important enough,’” said Dr. Delfs. “For the volunteers it was fascinating to meet people we wouldn’t have otherwise met. They just had different breaks in life.”

As with every church, the dinner at Riverside is followed by group sessions led by trained moderators. There is a “Life Skills” curriculum and a storytelling group where participants talk about their experiences. Each participant is assigned mentors who are culled from volunteers of the church. There are professional caseworkers pulled from Fordham’s master of social work program. After three months the participants celebrate graduation. Many of the participants return to volunteer and stay in contact with their mentors.

Besides the recently incarcerated, there are also programs for homeless veterans and domestic violence survivors. A program for LGBT youth recently held its first graduation.

“The program allows participants to ‘own’ their story,” said Lightburn. She said that the mentors also help the participants set realistic goals, like taking control of their finances and securing housing.

Five years ago Lightburn found few takers on funding the initial research. Undeterred, she conducted a process evaluation with three doctoral candidates from the Graduate School of Social Service. That initial evaluation led to a $20,000 grant for a study pilot, which led to an $85,000 grant for a full demonstration. The recent anonymous source also gave a $165,000 grant to grow the program. The program’s proven success spurred the latest $300,000 grant.

In order for Lightburn to study the program and maintain a professional distance, the research evolved into a learning collaborative with the Beck Institute providing research as guidance. Fordham students also benefited. At Riverside, Hope Eisdorfer Levin, GSS ’13, began as a program intern. She is now the director of the program and the Life Skills program at Xavier Mission.

“The research is a very important part of this, even though everyone who participates knows that people’s lives are being turned around,” said Dr. Delfs. “But we need the research to identify the essential components that are a success. Our society requires data to be convinced that these programs are worth the cost.”

Dr. Delfs, who practices internal medicine and behavior neurology, said that he personally needed little proof to be convinced.

“Never in my experience have I seen anything like this. It’s a powerful course redirection,” he said. “And it wouldn’t have happened without Fordham and the Beck Institute.”