Congressman Cleaver Welcomes Sister Berta for the State of the Union

“I am honored to have Sister Berta Sailer as my guest to the State of the Union address.  For decades she has worked each and every day to make life better for thousands of Kansas City’s poorest children regardless of race, religion or politics. She is a true champion for others and an example of seeking our better selves,” said Congressman Cleaver.

More information about Operation Breakthrough can be found here.  

Sisters Berta Sailer and Corita Bussanmas started what is now Operation Breakthrough 40 years ago by taking the babies of the working poor into their own living room at a convent in Kansas City. At the time, they were running a K-8 school, as well, and after it ceased to be a Catholic school, the nuns folded the childcare operation and the school into one nonprofit entity – Operation Breakthrough – and ran it all without any major financial support. They kept this fledgling nonprofit going by the sheer force of their will and their firm belief that African-American, inner-city children deserved a good education. They kept it going by teaching all day and by sweeping classrooms, cooking school lunches and doing paperwork late into the night - and all weekend, too. They kept it going by amazing ingenuity, managing to persevere many a day without any cash on hand, inspiring people to help them with their dogged devotion to families in need. They found teachers who would work for $25 a month, plus room and board in the convent. When they needed a lawyer, an accountant, a guy with a jackhammer – they drew people to them, who offered their services, free.

They have – through enthusiastic collaboration, successful fundraising, careful spending and skillful recruiting – built Operation Breakthrough into a $7 million agency, serving more than 500 children each day, with a professional staff of more than 150 people. In addition to Operation Breakthrough’s core mission of providing childcare and early childhood education for the infants, toddlers and preschoolers of the working-poor, the center offers before and after school programming for children from 6 to 16, on-site medical and dental care, mental health services, speech and occupational therapy and family supports, including case management, parenting programs, a food pantry and a clothing closet.

Many have been known to refer to Sisters Berta and Corita as “the Mother Teresas of Kansas City.” There are families on every block in Kansas City’s urban core who say these nuns are the people they run to when someone loses everything in a house fire, when a newborn comes home from the hospital with nothing but the diaper he’s wearing, when a young person needs a job, a bus pass to get to school, a second chance, a kind word or a good scolding. Sisters Berta and Corita and their staff have impacted three generations of Kansas City families, providing them with food, clothing, housing, education, guidance and hope. In short, they have created in Operation Breakthrough a nonprofit organization that forms a foundation under the most vulnerable people in Kansas City and gives them the means and inspiration to be all that they can be.

And that’s only what Sister Berta and Sister Corita accomplish at work. At home, they are full-time parents, though both are in their 70s. More than 15 years ago, incensed at the way the foster care system ravaged the lives of children at Operation Breakthrough, the sisters became licensed foster parents themselves, hoping to make a difference. Since then, they have opened their home to more than 60 children, some of whom have never left. The sisters have jointly adopted four children: Kenyauta, 17; Ronald, 17; Tyrez, 11; and Vanshay, 9 – all of whom have been with them since they were babies. Joining these four is an ever-changing group of other children – a teen whose family has been homeless, siblings who may not eat on weekends if they are not at the nuns’ house, children who need to feel loved and secure.

Emanuel Cleaver, II is the U.S. Representative for Missouri’s Fifth Congressional District, which includes Kansas City, Independence, Lee's Summit, Raytown, Grandview, Sugar Creek, Belton, Raymore and Peculiar, Missouri. He is a member of the exclusive House Financial Services Committee. Congressman Cleaver also serves as a Senior Whip of the Democratic Caucus and Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.