25th annual Communities of Salt & Light Awards set for April 24

The 25th Annual Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Greensburg Communities of Salt and Light Awards dinner will be held at Stratigos Banquet Center on Thursday, April 24. You can purchase tickets to this event here.

PHILANTHROPY
JOHN AND SUSAN COLEMAN (pictured above)
SAINT RAYMOND OF THE MOUNTAINS PARISH

Susan and John Coleman love chocolate – so much so that part of their lives is dedicated to Colebrook Chocolate Company, a family-owned business in Connellsville, Fayette County. They have dedicated their lives to philanthropy and helping those who need it most.

The parishioners of St. Raymond of the Mountains Parish in Donegal have known each other for nearly 40 years and have been married for most of them. They grew up near each other in Connellsville as friends, and their families knew each other. It was there they learned from an early age to share their gifts with those who may be in need.

The Colemans are honored by Catholic Charities this year with the 2025 Salt and Light Award for Philanthropy.

Their gift of giving back to their parish, community and others started many years ago.

Susan’s mother was Catholic, and her father, a funeral director, was Protestant. Susan’s mother raised her nine children in the Catholic Church. Susan attended Conn-Area Catholic School and Geibel Catholic Junior-Senior High School, both in Connellsville. John and his three siblings attended Connellsville High School. All of the children became friends, and the friendship between Susan and John turned into love.

After college and marriage, John’s career took the couple to several different states including California, where Susan found work in her field of dental hygiene. After four years of living on the West Coast, Western Pennsylvania was calling them home.

“People were like, ‘What are you thinking? You left Southern California to come back?’” John said. “But with Susan’s large family and my family predominantly in the Connellsville area, we decided it would be a good thing to do.”

At the same time, John, who works in finance with Janney Montgomery Scott, was working on his MBA. As part of his thesis, he decided to help family members who were already in the confectionery business. That is when John and Susan decided to join with family members Jeff and Rose Mary Brooks to merge their names and form the Colebrook Chocolate Company. That was almost 30 years ago.

In both their business and personal lives, they make a practice of giving back to their community and the Church. Susan attributes this devotion to her mother.

“My mother was at church every day,” Susan remembered. .

Her brother Jeff became blind when he was in eighth grade. Susan’s mother asked priests from across the Diocese of Greensburg and other dioceses to pray for him. Father Daniel C. Mahoney, now retired, was a newly ordained Diocesan priest then.

“Father Dan came several times and talked to my mom, and then my mom felt comfortable with him, and Father took Jeff out to Notre Dame for the charismatic movement. Jeff was born again and his faith was tremendous,” Susan added.

She and John rely on their faith to deal with her own health struggles.

“I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis two weeks after we got married,” she said. “Where do you go when those kind of things happen? You just give it to the Lord, and he’s blessed us.”

Before becoming parishioners at Saint Raymond of the Mountains Parish, the Coleman’s were parishioners at Immaculate Conception Parish in Connellsville. John said their current pastor, Father Anthony A. Onoko, also has an impact on their lives and their philanthropy.

“Father Anthony doesn’t have to twist your arm or anything. He just smiles and says, ‘This is what we probably need a little help with’,” John said. “It’s really a growing kind of parish. I’ve seen the new improvements that have been made. I mean, you’ve got to be proud of that. It’s a great church. He’s done a wonderful job and he’s been very influential and our lives in the short time that we’ve known him.”

In addition to supporting their parish, the Coleman’s have generously supported Conn-Area Catholic School through fundraisers and participation in the Earned Income Tax Credit program (EITC). They also are sponsors of the Saint Rita Parish street festival and the Connellsville community at large with support for various community organizations.

The Colemans say they are honored by the Salt and Light Award.

“You don’t do it for the recognition,” Susan said. “It just was always part of our life.”

John added, “Different people have touched our lives, even if it’s not money. Maybe it is just giving them time or advice or helping them out. The award is wonderful, but I feel like what we’ve done, we’ve done, and we’ve gotten a lot from it.”

HUMANITARIAN
THOMAS A. JACOBSEN
BLESSED SACRAMENT CATHEDRAL PARISH
President of the Diocesan Central Society of St. Vincent de
Paul, Council of Greensburg.

Thomas A. Jacobsen is an example of a humble servant. The parishioner of Blessed Sacrament Cathedral Parish has spent most of his adulthood helping those less fortunate. Despite many life changes, Jacobsen continues in service to the needy.

In the Diocese of Greensburg, he served as a member of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul Conference at Blessed Sacrament Cathedral Parish and now is president of the Diocesan Central Society of St. Vincent de Paul Council of Greensburg. Greensburg District Council.

His lifetime of dedication to helping others is why he is the recipient of the 2025 Catholic Charities Salt and Light Humanitarian Award.

“When Bishop Kulick called, I thought I was in trouble,” Jacobsen said. “My first thought was, why me? There’s a lot of other people that do the same thing. After hanging up and thinking about it, I think that it would be a disservice to the individual that nominated me, and then also a disservice to those that looked at what I was doing through Catholic Charities, and I said, yes, this means something and we want to let people to know that’s going on.”

During a visit to the Greensburg District council warehouse in Leechburg, Jacobsen shared how his role as a volunteer elsewhere evolved into leading the council.

Jacobsen grew up in a small town in Iowa. After serving in the United States Navy, he worked in the nuclear power industry for nearly 40 years. He and his late wife, Elizabeth, lived on the outskirts of Chicago, where they raised their three sons. In their former parish, they volunteered at a homeless shelter.

“I coordinated the volunteers that would come in with donations of food,”
Jacobsen remembered. “We would come in at 5 o’clock in the evening, make a meal for the people. Some of our volunteers would stay over in the evening to make lunches, and then one or two would come over about 10 o’clock at night and stay overnight and help the person who ran the shelter to help get people up to go to work and do other things. The Knights of Columbus would come in the morning and make them breakfast and then we’d clean up.”

When they retired, the couple moved to the Greensburg area to be closer to two of their sons. Elizabeth attended Seton Hill University in Greensburg and was fond of the area.

“When we moved out here, my wife wanted to find something for us to do, so that’s when I started with the conferences here,” Jacobsen said. “It took me a while to get used to the rolling hills and such, and I went through a lot of brakes in my car until I figured out how to drive through these mountains and hilly places.”

After Elizabeth passed away, Jacobsen continued his humanitarian work. He met his partner, Debbie Scarpetti, and the two expanded their involvement in the St. Vincent de Paul Conference locally while assisting the needy in West Virginia.

Jacobsen said it is the strong women in his life like his mother, Elizabeth and Scarpetti, and Lilli Faber who works in the council office, as motivators of his volunteer efforts.

“I think the motivation really comes from the people around you that understand there’s something there, that you may have the ability to do, and they push you towards that,” he said.

Raised as a Methodist, Jacobsen converted to Catholicism through an RCIA program in a previous parish. He knows his volunteer work brings him closer to Christ.

“I always pray to the Holy Spirit, especially when I’m doing at-home visits. I just pray that what we’ve done is the best we can do and leave the rest to the Holy Spirit,” he said.

Jacobsen sees the face of Christ in the people he helps. His reward is knowing that he helped someone in need over a rough spot in life.

“What keeps you grounded is sometimes you look at these families, and you can say, ‘there before the grace of God go I’,” Jacobsen said.

HUMAN SERVICE ORGANIZATION
LADIES OF CHARITY
SAINT MARY (NATIVITY) PARISH

Every Thursday between 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. there is a bustle of activity inside the former St. Mary (Nativity) Parish Center in Uniontown.

In one room, donations of clothes and other items that help in the development of a child are received and sorted into appropriate sizes. Another room is where the packaged donations are stored. At the end of the hallway is the Ladies of Charity Children’s Closet. This is the space where gently used clothing is placed on hangers and racks for those in need to come in and select items for their children, newborn to size 5T.

All of the sorting, bagging, and stocking and serving clients is lovingly done by the Ladies of Charity in the Roman Catholic Churches of Southern Fayette County.

The “ladies,” who live by the motto “To Serve rather than Be Served,” are the recipients of the Catholic Charities 2025 Salt and Light Human Service Organization Award.

“Originally, this amazing group of ladies asked me for a closet to store some clothes in,” said Father Anthony J. Klimko, pastor of the seven parishes that make up the Roman Catholic Churches of Southern Fayette County. “After that, they asked me for one of the rooms in the former school to help distribute the stuff, and it just kept on growing and growing.”

So has the need in the community.

Gloria Nuccetelli, pictured on the left, is president of the Ladies of Charity in the parishes. They serve their community to promote and enhance the charisms of St. Vincent de Paul, especially when it comes to ministering to mothers and children in need.

She said they are able to keep up with the demand with generous clothing donations and with the help of the Holy Spirit.

“Every time our diapers go down low or our clothing, we will get an envelope and it will be $100 or $200, a lot of times anonymous donations, and it’s as if God is protecting us and the Holy Spirit is providing,” she said.

Christine Rozak, pictured on the right, has been a volunteer at the Children’s Closet for two years. She said she can’t wait for Thursdays.

“Everyone is so wonderful here and everyone is so spiritual and calm and peaceful, and we work together so well,” Rozak said. “We don’t make decisions by ourselves, it’s always a group decision.”

Nuccetelli hopes the kindness shown to those in need spurs them to become involved.

“I hope they will go home and into their families, into their communities, into their churches, and they can do little acts of kindness. Even if they don’t have money to provide to other people, they can give somebody a hug or a smile,” she said.

Nuccetelli said the Ladies of Charity feel their volunteer work is a vocation.

“No one would have thought that it would have come this far, and it’s only by the grace of God that we have done what we have done.”