A PLACE Belong TO by Rachel Greene What began with one infant in need has grown into a community where residents are not only cared for, but known, celebrated and given room to live fully in Belmont, North Carolina, at Camp Hope and alongside partners like Pi Kappa Phi and The Ability Experience.
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n any given Saturday morning, in the small community of Belmont, North Carolina, Chris shows up for work. He ties on his apron, takes his place behind the counter at Spruced Goose Station and gets ready to take orders. He knows the regulars, and they know him. He greets each with a smile and is happy to serve a good meal with a side of conversation. Later in the week, he might find himself making candy bouquets to sell, building his newest Lego set or spending time on the Catawba River. His days are filled with work, hobbies, friendships and routine, and his life is as full as anyone else’s. Chris has a disability. That is part of his story, but it is hardly the entire story. For 70 years, that is what Holy Angels has been showing the Belmont community, and the world beyond it. Located on the Sisters of Mercy campus, Holy Angels serves children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and complex medical needs. It is a place where residents receive
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around-the-clock care and support, but it is also a place where they are given opportunities to learn, work, grow and build lives filled with dignity, purpose and connection. It began not with business plans or a mission statement, but with a young mother in crisis. She arrived at the doorstep of the Sisters of Mercy carrying her infant daughter, Maria Morrow. Maria had been born with spina bifida and hydrocephalus, and doctors had given her only months to live. Without hesitation, the sisters took her in. Maria lived far beyond that prognosis, and the life she was given became the beginning of something much larger than any one person. What the Sisters of Mercy offered her was care in a moment of need, but it became the foundation for a community built on the belief that people with disabilities deserve dignity, opportunity and a true sense of belonging. When she passed away in 2010 at age 54, she left behind the legacy of a community that had grown around the belief that her life mattered.