BRENTWOOD — After 30 years of feeding people on the Sisters of St. Joseph campus, Joseph Pacifico Sr. is giving the congregation a different kind of helping — in the form of a $1.5 million donation.
“My dad is a very, very loyal man who believes in taking care of the people who took care of him. So, when it came time to pick out a few entities for charitable purposes, the Sisters of St. Joseph were at the top of his list,” said his son Joseph Pacifico Jr., who spoke to The Tablet on behalf of his 87-year-old father.
The sisters announced the donation, which they say is one of the largest the congregation has ever received from a living donor, on July 30.
“It’s extraordinarily generous of them,” Sister Karen Burke, the president of the congregation, said of the donation, which was made on behalf of Joseph Sr.’s wife, Patricia, and their family. “We see the family has such a profound belief in the mission of the Sisters of St. Joseph.
“With this donation, they are clearly saying to us that they see the importance of ensuring that our mission is going to continue into the future.”
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Sister Karen explained that the money will go toward several areas important to the sisters’ mission, including their outreach and refugee resettlement programs, and the St. Joseph Villa Retreat Center. The sisters also plan to purchase a box truck for the refugee program to help people set up their new homes, she said.
In addition, the sisters plan to establish scholarships at two schools they sponsor in the Diocese of Brooklyn — Fontbonne Hall Academy in Bay Ridge and The Mary Louis Academy in Jamaica Estates.
Joseph Sr., who grew up in Jackson Heights and was an altar server at St. Joan of Arc Church, later moved to Long Island. He and Patricia raised four children in Greenlawn and attended St. Francis of Assisi Church. The family later moved to Dix Hills, where they currently attend St. Matthew Church.
In 1969, he established CulinArt, a company that supplies dining and catering services to offices, schools, and health care facilities. After selling CulinArt to a food conglomerate for an undisclosed sum in 2016, he set up a charitable trust to donate money to his favorite causes.
In addition to the Sisters of St. Joseph, Joseph Sr. is donating $1.5 million each to St. Francis Preparatory School in Fresh Meadows and to Hope House Ministries, a program that assists homeless people in Port Jefferson, New York.
Before accepting the donation, the sisters met with Joseph Sr. and Joseph Jr. to discuss the congregation’s ideas for how best to use the money.
“My dad never earmarked the money for anything. He trusted the entities to do the right thing with his donation,” he said. “When he saw the list and saw how they were going to use the money, he was absolutely thrilled.”