From the Cleveland Plain-Dealer:

For the past 31 years, the Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate, a Polish order founded in 1878, have ministered to the ethnic elderly of Cleveland – the shut-ins, the abandoned, the ailing and lonely.

Each weekday, five sisters of the group make their rounds to meet the spiritual, emotional, psychological and sometimes basic survival needs of more than 200 people.

The group was originally invited here by former Bishop James Hickey to serve the Eastern European immigrants of Slavic Village.

The sisters also are on call during weekends for their mostly Polish-speaking or Eastern European clients, though neither a person’s religion nor ethnicity is a requisite for aid.

Some clients have outlived the days when they could rely on a close-knit community of merchants and professionals who shared their language and customs but moved out of the neighborhood over the years, according to Kaszuba, program director of the sisters’ Special Ministry to the Aged based at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church.

So the sisters fill the gaps, helping these people shop, obtain needed medical and social services, arrange legal affairs, translate or transport.

And sometimes they are just there for companionship and comfort.

"It’s unbelievable work and a very needed service that the sisters are performing," said Gene Bak, executive director of the Polish American Cultural Center in Slavic Village.

"The community is getting older and a lot of the younger people have moved to the suburbs," he added.

"But the older people still stay in the area because the churches and halls are here, and the sisters serve a very important function by helping them do that."