Those two words might describe how it feels to be our Center Director. Yet, like every episode of the TV show, Jackie Kellner somehow manages to get the mission accomplished. Although unlike the TV show, it rarely happens in under an hour. In fact, it often takes much more than her 40 hour work week.

Although her title is Center Director, there are a lot of tasks and responsibilities that fall under that umbrella. Jackie started here as Development Director, and continues to do those duties. She is responsible for grant research and writing, developing all fundraising efforts, receiving and crediting all donations, and writing and sending an acknowledgment letter to each donor.

Then there are other financial duties, like overseeing the budget, reviewing all disbursements to vendors, regularly reviewing vendor contracts and obtaining bids for contracted services to assure we are getting the best value for our money, reviewing bids for any significant repair expenses, and working with staff to find ways to stretch every dollar received.

She is also an editor, working with Cecilia to create the monthly Ministry Associates newsletter to communicate with our donors, volunteers and prayer partners, and with Adele and Cecilia to review the Retreats & Programs newsletter that is sent out every four months. Occasionally, this Chronicler will ask for a review and second opinion on a Chronicle before posting (not this week, though). She is also the backup for the volunteer who takes care of sending the weekly email and posting the reflection and Chronicle on the website and FaceBook.

As director, she attends the monthly Board meetings and conducts weekly team meetings. For the Board meetings she prepares a written report of the Center’s successes and struggles, as well as any other issues and concerns the Board needs to be aware of. The team meetings serve as an opportunity to coordinate between departments in preparation for expected groups, as well as the time to share any information or direction from the Board. She also participates in all committee meetings and holds quarterly meetings with the residents, in addition to regular one-on-one meetings with various staff members and residents to discuss their responsibilities and resolve any questions or concerns. Then there are Zoom meetings, webinars and occasional seminars or retreats for professional development, fundraising ideas, and to network with other retreat and spirituality center directors.

Then there are the messier parts of her job, like correcting an employee, resolving conflicts and disagreements between team members, and holding firm to the mission, vision and values of the ministry in the face of opposition. Those messy pieces are always challenging and require her to be an effective communicator, knowing what to say and how to say it, as well as having and using excellent listening skills. Those skills come in handy when she has to respond to hundreds of emails and dozens of phone calls each week, too.

Jackie is the public face of St. Anthony’s and responsible to represent the mission, vision and best interests of St. Anthony’s to the staff, the residents, the guests, the volunteers and the general public. That means modeling our core Franciscan values of hospitality, compassion, joyful service and relationship. It means promoting our programs, retreats and hosting services to community groups. It means engaging with and encouraging our stakeholders, which is a fancy way of saying finding ways to recruit more volunteers and solicit more donations as well as express our deep gratitude for all that our stakeholders offer to us in terms of time, talent and treasure. It means welcoming guests and empowering staff to do everything they can to make our guests feel welcome.

And when it comes to joyful service, she does that not only in her day-to-day role as Center Director, but as a volunteer herself. She and her husband Dean have devoted many hours to helping JustBob on the grounds, cleaning up storm damaged trees and the remnants of our logging last fall, as well as repairing trails.

I’m sure there are a few things I probably missed, but I think you get an idea of the challenge that Jackie takes on weekly and has for the past three and a half years. Oh, not to mention, most of her time on the job included steering the Center safely through a pandemic, a difficult mission that more than a few small businesses were not able to accomplish.

For all the gifts our Director brings and all the work she does to deal with what seems like an impossible mission week in and week out, we say Deo Gratias!