Sr Sabina can only be described as a dynamo, a bundle of energy and at 81 has a workload which would exhaust someone half her age!
Sr Sabina is a founding member of the SIFA/Fireside Charity. She explains how it began back in 1993. ‘I was head teacher of Corpus Christi Primary School in Coventry and had just retired from teaching after 40 years in the profession. Shortly after my retirement the Selly Park sisters decided to establish an outreach to the poor and homeless of Birmingham. I was asked by the Mother General to consider getting involved in this work which I was only happy to do. The only thing we didn’t have was a centre or anything like that in which to work from! In 1993 however we joined forces with St Martin’s the Anglican church in the Bullring, an ecumenical project, but they had a very restricted area and room for only about 30 homeless people to be catered for. After a year or so however we found the Fireside Day Centre on Pershore Street but the challenge then was getting it refurbished as it was really no more than a shell of a warehouse and in a desperate state. The Sisters at Selly Park agreed to refurbish it. The project was shared then between the Council of Churches and the Sisters of St Paul. The Fireside centre was officially opened in November 1994.
I think this love for the poor began when I was at school.
Our work involves reaching out to a wide range of different people. Some of them have no where to live and so live in card board boxes on the street, others are housed in shared accommodation; others may have a flat but have very little else in terms of furniture, bedding and so on. Some are in hostels and recovering from drug or alcohol addiction.
Fireside now employs over 50 staff and has numerous volunteers. We are funded from social services and various trusts. Over 27,000 individuals pass through our doors every year.
I love serving the homeless. I think this love for the poor began when I was at school. I witnessed for myself then the sisters going out to the poor and this made a deep impression on me. I have always been involved with poor parishes and I love visiting the poor. For me they are God’s special people. They are always so kind and generous and supportive and they have hearts of gold.
A letter dropped through my letter box on December 15 last year informing me that I had been awarded the MBE and asking if I would accept it. They discovered however that I had an English passport and my award got referred back to the Cabinet Office. So I wasn’t to be in the New Year’s Honours List but learnt that I was to receive my MBE on the Queen’s Birthday and that I would have an investiture.
I was delighted to receive the MBE but to be honest I felt that there were people who deserved it other than me. It was a wonderful day though. Sister Therese Brown joined me and my two lovely nieces Stephanie and Marguerite, who are both nurses in Ireland. We were all so pleased to be going to Buckingham Palace. My name was called out, I curtseyed and thanked Her Majesty. The Queen was absolutely lovely and so kind. She asked me where I was from and said that we were doing great work with the homeless and socially excluded in Birmingham.
We all had a lovely day and one that I will remember for the rest of my life.
