SAN ANTONIO • It was a piece of junk mail that pointed Sister Odilia Korenek, IWBS, executive director of Blessed Sacrament Academy (BSA), to a 21st century venture for the San Antonio Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament. This particular junk mail led her to the Internet and the possibility of a Web site.
    There were stops and starts along the way, but on June 30 the sisters officially announced the opening of their online religious gift shop, NetNuns.com, whose Web site slogan proclaims, “Bringing you religious gifts on a wing and a prayer!”
    “The why of it is all around you,” said Sister Odilia at the media announcement of the new venture, with a beaming class of pre-schoolers gathered at the side of the podium.
    “The little ones in front of you, the children and young people, the teens who walk up and drive that long entryway — they are bright kids, often left behind by dysfunctional families and overbooked educational systems.”

    NetNuns.com was yet another adaptation to change taken on by the sisters, who originally opened Blessed Sacrament Academy on Mission Road as an all-girl high school and elementary school in 1926. A change in neighborhood demographics in the 1980s necessitated refocusing on how best to continue their ministry on the South side and, after prayer and consulting with neighbors and professionals, the sisters closed the school, only to reopen its doors to multiple new ministries with a citywide outreach.

    First came the Child Development Center in 1989, currently serving about 150 students, ages six weeks to five years, and including families referred by Child Protective Services. “This is why the Child Development Center tries to create an environment of love, security and respect for the children attending,” said center director Alice Alvarez, “so they and their families can have some place to feel safe, and they can have some place to explore and to have fun.”

    The center’s colorful, roomy classrooms offer developmentally appropriate toys and are equipped with computers. The cafeteria provides hot lunches (85 percent of the students are in the food assistance program), while outside there are four large, shaded playgrounds for the children to enjoy.

    The youngsters participate in the Kinder-Readiness program through the San Antonio Independent School District and the Jewish Community Center’s diversity program. They are also involved in the foster grand-parent program and the Discovery Program, which offers after-school care and summer and holiday camps.

    Next came Por Vida Academy in 1991, an alternative charter high school geared toward giving a second chance to students and young adults not able to succeed in regular public and private educational institutions.

    “Our students are very unique in some ways,” said Assistant Superintendent Randy Resendez, “but yet they’re very similar to students in every other campus in every other district. They come here for a myriad of reasons, but they’re trying to find their way, and that’s why they’re here. And, as they’re trying to find their way, we’re trying to help them in any way we can.” A number of the students have children enrolled in the Child Development Center, so benefit doubly.

    The Parents’ Academy came along in 1994. “We ran 25 programs this year” said Director Kathy Lozano, “and they all had the same foundation — learning to understand and respect your child.” This past year, 425 parents graduated from the six to eight-week programs. “Some of these parents come in and feel like, ‘I need this class because I need to change my kid,’” she said. “What they realize is that they change themselves.”

    The academy serves expectant mothers — and fathers, and the parents of toddlers to teens, all in specialized programs, and partners with Bexar County Juvenile Probation and the Early Intervention program.

    “A lot of time parents don’t have the skills they need or the support,” noted Lozano. “A lot of parents were themselves abused horribly — emotionally and physically. They don’t have all their skills, so we try to help them build skills.”

    The program provides childcare during the classes, as well as family meals, and offers the parents incentives and rewards for their progress. The graduation rate this past year was 85 percent, Lozano proudly notes, “so we know that we’re making a difference in building a better community and building a better future by helping parents who are helping kids.”

    Funding for all these vital programs comes from a variety of public and private sources, along with BSA’s annual “Sticky Wickets” croquet tournament fund-raiser during Fiesta (which is still going strong), but this is not enough. The sister’s new online business venture, NetNuns.com, came about to fill that gap.

    “When it came time for the sisters to make their transition into a new endeavor or, as I say, into the 21st century,” said Sylvia Aguilar, marketing and Web site designer for the sisters, “being online and having a dotcom is something new — and something exciting.”

    This stream-lined venture offers customers the convenience of ordering through the Web site, with the manufacturer shipping directly to them, avoiding extra costs and the need for the sisters to stock items and maintain a physical store.

    NetNuns.com sells not only a wide variety of typical Catholic gift items, such as rosaries, scapulars, crosses and first Communion sets, but carries interfaith symbols in their gift lines, including those of Protestant denominations and the Jewish faith. “We have quite a variety here for everyone,” said Aguilar, noting five additional Web sites have been purchased with the intent of segueing into religious art, and perhaps the print and audio media, as well as focusing on Blessed Sacrament Academy’s current programs.

    Ordering items through www.NetNuns.com will help support Blessed Sacrament Academy’s outreach, noted Sister Odilia. “We are blessed by the lives we touch in our ministry here,” she said. “And they are worth pulling back onto the road of well-living and learning. The little ones are worth a first-rate start in education and socialization, and their parents are worth reclaiming through education in child development and the skills they need to build functional and healthy families.”

    Noting the great value of the human spirit, she added that this legacy can be passed on “only if we give the next generation the opportunity, the strength of a good education, discipline and spiritual development, which makes it possible for them to continue handing on the good and holy things of life to the next generation.”