"Aspiring nun" on TV

A friend of one of our students was on local TV recently.  Check out the segment by clicking on today's title.  The transcript is below. If time allows this week, please help this woman!
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A local woman wants to join a convent, but her college loans might keep her from answering her calling.

The Little Sisters of the Poor are hoping a bake sale will help raise the dough.

Elise Maloney, 24, is volunteer coordinator at the Jeanne Jugan Residence for the Elderly in Northeast Washington, but she believes God has called her to be a nun.

"I would like to be a Little Sister of the Poor, be serving Christ and the elderly poor," Maloney said.

The sisters run the home, and would love to have her. But there's one big problem: nuns aren't allowed to join if they have any debt.

Maloney graduated from college with $75,000 in student loans. The sisters, who get no salary and live solely on donations, say it's a serious problem nationwide: desperately needed vocations are being sidelined by college debt:

"Most congregations will not accept a young woman with a large school loan," said Sr. Camille Rose Hampton, the postulant supervisor. "So many young women are forced with a decision either to wait, and to pay off their loans . . . or to give up."

None of the Little Sisters wants maloney to give up.

"We realized that if God is calling her, then He's expecting us to do something, too, and to get in there and do what we can to help her," said Sr. Benedict Armstrong, the mother superior.

So, the Little Sisters and residents are having a bake sale this Saturday to raise money to pay off Maloney's loans.

"Elise would make a wonderful Little Sister, so I wanted to help as much as I can," said Anne Sparich, a Little Sisters resident.

The bake sale will feature homemade scones, pineapple upside-down cake and all kinds of baked goods, as well as the sisters' famous peanut brittle.

"If I didn't believe in her vocation, I wouldn't be baking thousands and thousands and thousands of cupcakes," Hampton said.

Everyone at Little Sisters believes in miracles.

"When you know what God wants for you, and ultimately He wants you to be happy, and He's giving you the opportunity to do that, of course you're excited!" Maloney exclaimed.

That bake sale is Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Little Sisters of the Poor Jeanne Jugan Residence, located at 4200 Harewood Road NE, Washington, DC, 20017.