When Laura DePalma worked as a video editor and television producer for DeSales Media Group, she kept rubber ducks on her desk to make her co-workers smile. One colleague, Evan Bellouny, liked to go to her desk and rearrange the ducks when she wasn’t looking. 

Before Rev. Billy Graham, there was Bishop Fulton Sheen. In the early 1950s, when comedy legends Milton Berle and Jackie Gleason ruled the airwaves of the nascent television industry, Bishop Sheen became a superstar, hosting a show that drew 30 million viewers a week and made him the first televangelist. 

When Erin K. McAtee lifts her brush to the canvas to paint, she considers it an act of prayer.

As executive director of The Bridge to Life, Francesca Yellico spends her days helping mothers who choose life for their babies over abortion. Operating out of Bridge’s College Point headquarters, she gathers baby clothes, formula, diapers, and other things a new mother would need for her baby.

As the campus minister at Queens College, Omar Cortez can’t help but smile when he thinks about the rapid growth of the Newman Center, the Catholic meeting space in the campus’ Student Union building. 

When Msgr. Joseph Calise was a young priest, he was caught in the grip of alcohol to the point that it almost took over his life. Looking back, he can recall the moment he knew he needed help. 

Someday, Elvis Toribio will be active in his parish serving as priest. But today he is actively studying toward that goal. On this day, he was seated at his desk in a classroom at St. Joseph’s Seminary and College in Dunwoodie, trying to absorb the wealth of information from his professor, Father John Cush, in a Fundamental Theology course.