Sister Barbara Joseph Foley: Woman of Influence

About 50 miles south of Sacramento, the northern California city of Manteca is sunny and mild, perfect for tooling around town in a sporty convertible. Sister Barbara Joseph Foley, then just Barbara, a young career woman, loved zipping around town in her hard-top Toyota MR-2, often faster than she should have.   

She was living the quintessential early 1990s young professional lifestyle, the kind you might see in the movies or on a sitcom. She lived in a stylish condominium on a golf course, her career was on the right track, and she’d landed a position with the city’s purchasing department. She had a dog, a cat and an ever-growing collection of CDs. 

One day, as she was treating herself to a second television for her condo, she was struck with one thought: “What am I doing?” Even decades later, as she tells the story she sounds incredulous. “I didn’t need the second television. I didn’t need anything. It dawned on me that I was trying to find fulfillment with things,” she says. “I realized that things can’t be fulfilling.”  

The notion that she was trying to fill a void in her soul with more and more consumerism and that she should try something different was like a seed taking root in her heart. “Then God called me to do a very radical thing,” she says. Foley is a natural risk-taker, and she did something bold. She, by then in her early 40s, decided to jettison her condo, her career and too-material life, and enter a convent in Oklahoma. “I told my boss I was leaving and told him where I was going. He said, ‘Wow! Oklahoma,’ and kindly offered to hold my job for me for a year, but I said no, thank you.” Foley knew she wanted to give her new life her all, and having a fallback plan would defeat the purpose.  

The year was 1997. Oklahoma City was very different than it is today. Downtown was barren and a little grim. Those first few years as a new Carmelite Sister, Foley was too busy to notice. “I was mostly confined to the convent, going to theology classes. My siblings came to visit in those early years and were like wow, what did you do?” Foley laughs at the memory. She has a joyful, easy laugh, which dances through her conversation. 

Eventually, Foley volunteered for a hands-on program called Hotdogs for the Homeless. As her acquaintance with Oklahoma City’s homeless population grew, so did her desire to serve them. She realized that their hunger wasn’t limited to a need for sustenance. They were also hungry for simple kindness, human compassion and dignity. The universe presented her with an offer she couldn’t refuse. 

“When I started volunteering for Hotdogs for the Homeless around 2001, it was new. Three of us would go out in a truck filled with hotdogs in lunch sacks. We went to the camps and got to know the guys. It touched my heart and I got a vision of having a place, someplace they could come and feel safe, chit-chat. Like a coffee house,” she says. A few years later, a space on NW 4th Street in downtown Oklahoma City became available, and she took the plunge.

She fed the homeless sandwiches and gave them coffee and conversation. A weedy patch behind the building became a tranquil garden, a place for people to sit and feel sheltered. Word got out, and she added more volunteers, and more kindnesses: breakfast in a bag, clothing, hygiene kits. 

Since its inception, the pantry has remained nimble, expanding its services to address a variety of basic needs as they arise. Services include a foot clinic, a clothing room, a washer and dryer, a food bank, and an emergency vehicle that is used to visit the homeless in extremely hot or cold weather and to offer assistance to people on the streets who find themselves in dangerous situations. An eye clinic was poised to open when the pandemic blew into town, shuttering it a week before it was to open.

Sister BJ’s Pantry is not a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter. It is a place where, without the need to provide identification, patrons are met with a listening ear, open arms and an open heart as they visit a place of peace and rest. 

Dignity is an action word for Sister BJ, and for her, treating people with dignity and recognizing each person’s value and worth as an individual is crucial. “Dignity is respecting each person wherever they are. It’s so important. If you give a human being dignity, you help them to feel worthwhile as a person. It’s not an easy task all the time; in fact, it can be really hard.” 

Foley comes from a close-knit family with a strong Catholic faith. With lots of help from their grandparents, she and her five brothers and sisters were raised by their mother, who was widowed at 36. Foley’s work today draws its core tenants in part from Foley’s mother, who she says “always stood tall and always made me feel important. My mother always gently reminded us to treat one another with love and respect. If you are loved and you love yourself, you are then able to spread this to others.”