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Feature News | Friday, February 01, 2013

A lifetime of helping children

Centro Mater's retiring executive director, Miriam Roman, says a few words at the reception that followed the Mass.

Photographer: ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO | FC

Centro Mater's retiring executive director, Miriam Roman, says a few words at the reception that followed the Mass.

MIAMI | Miriam Román was 33 when she started working at Centro Mater in Little Havana — teaching religion to school-age children over the summer.

She had just come from finishing her own studies in religion, philosophy and family counseling at the University of Louvain, Belgium, and asked her former teacher in Cuba — the late Miami Auxiliary Bishop Agustín Román (no relation) — to help her find a job in South Florida. He suggested she go see Sacred Heart Sister Margarita Miranda Otero, who had founded Centro Mater in 1968 to care for the children of newly arrived Cuban exiles.

Román never left. She continued working at the Little Havana center as a social worker, then as its administrator, and for the last five years as executive director of all five Centro Mater facilities: the original campus plus a second facility in Little Havana, two more centers in Hialeah Gardens and a fifth in Hialeah.

Thanks in part to Román’s leadership, Centro Mater today serves not just 120 children after school but 1,200 children, from six weeks to 12 years old, both during and after the school day.

Román is now 72 and Centro Mater is 45. She figures it is time to retire.

Claudia de la Cruz, president of The Centro Mater Foundation's board of directors, right, presents retiring executive director Miriam Roman with a medal of the Mater Admirabilis (admirable mother) for whom Centro Mater is named.

Photographer: ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO | FC

Claudia de la Cruz, president of The Centro Mater Foundation's board of directors, right, presents retiring executive director Miriam Roman with a medal of the Mater Admirabilis (admirable mother) for whom Centro Mater is named.

“We have followed the steps of Sister Miranda,” she said after a Jan. 21 Mass marking the facility’s anniversary, during which she also became the first recipient of the Sister Margarita Miranda Award. “In Centro Mater, every child matters.”

She recalled those early years of the Cuban diaspora and how Sister Miranda had sought to help her fellow exiles, especially the large number of children who were left alone after school because their mothers and fathers had to work long hours in local factories. She named the place Centro Mater after the Mater Admirabilis (mother most admirable), the Marian avocation of her congregation, the Society of the Sacred Heart.

As immigration patterns have shifted, Centro Mater no longer serves only the children of Cuban exiles but it continues its “beautiful mission,” Román said, a mission “centered on the human being as a child of God and a desire to help the neediest children to develop to their fullest potential.”

Sister Miranda left South Florida for Spain in 1974. In 1980, Centro Mater began receiving Head Start funds and enrolling pre-schoolers. In 1996, it opened its first Hialeah Gardens facility, and the expansion continued with additional centers in 1998, 2008 and 2009.

All five Centro Mater facilities are accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children and all five also have received the highest rating — 5 stars — from Quality Count, Miami-Dade County’s quality rating and improvement system for early learning programs.

Originally operated under the auspices of Catholic Charities, Centro Mater became part of Catholic Health Services in 2007. All its funding, however, comes from money raised by The Centro Mater Foundation along with grants from other private groups, the United Way, county, state and federal programs for children.

Román credited the center’s expansion and success to the devoted group of women at The Centro Mater Foundation “who have committed their lives … to really serve us.”

“In spite of their own personal hardships, they always found the time to give to others,” she said, adding a special word of thanks to the foundation’s first president, Paquita Aldrich, who attended the celebration.

“There’s always a need” for more funding, Román said, alluding to a waiting list of more than 1,000 children. “The needs always outpace our ability to satisfy them.”

JOIN THE PARTY
Centro Mater will mark its 45th anniversary March 9 at The Temple House in Miami Beach with a “Heaven on Earth” gala. For more information, contact [email protected] or visit www.centromater.com.
“Supporting Centro Mater is a way of investing in the future,” said Archbishop Thomas Wenski, who celebrated the anniversary Mass at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Charity in Miami. 

At the reception which followed, a slide show played in the background on a giant screen, with smiling, now grown alumni of Centro Mater recalling their fondest memories of their days there. At the same time, their current positions — college students, teachers, lawyers, psychologists — also flashed on the screen.

Román said she will have time now to volunteer at her parish, Santa Barbara in Hialeah, as well as enjoy leisure time with her husband, three children and four grandchildren. But she will not leave Centro Mater completely. “I am going to keep volunteering as part of the board.”
Retiring Centro Mater executive director, and 39-year employee, Miriam Roman, center, poses for a photo with Claudia de la Cruz, president of The Centro Mater Foundation's board of directors, and Archbishop Thomas Wenski, after receiving the first-ever Sister Margarita Miranda Award.

Photographer: ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO | FC

Retiring Centro Mater executive director, and 39-year employee, Miriam Roman, center, poses for a photo with Claudia de la Cruz, president of The Centro Mater Foundation's board of directors, and Archbishop Thomas Wenski, after receiving the first-ever Sister Margarita Miranda Award.


Comments from readers

Elaine M. Syfert - 02/06/2013 03:00 PM
Great lady, great catholic woman, great example of what dedication and love for your neighbor is all about. I have always admired Miriam and wish her and Ricardo the best in her "jubilacion". Let it be full of "jubilo" and with time to give to her passions and dreams. Well done, dear friend, well done.

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