Five Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur with ties to Hawaii will be among 17 Jubilarians honored at a Mass of Thanksgiving on Aug. 15 at Cunningham Memorial Chapel at Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont, Calif.

Collectively, these sisters taught tens of thousands of children in California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii.

Celebrating 60 years is Sister Joanne Miller who taught at Holy Family School in Honolulu from 1967 to 1970. She also taught in Los Angeles and San Francisco and was principal for six years in Santa Barbara, Calif. Today she assists at La Casa de Maria Retreat Center in Santa Barbara.

Four other sisters are celebrating 50 years. They are Sister Phyllis Cook, Sister Judith (Kieran) Flahavan, Sister Mary Ellen Howard and Sister Karen Pozniak.

Sister Phyllis taught from three years at Holy Family School in Honolulu and assisted one summer at the Special Education Center of Oahu. She later did teacher training in Kenya, and was a Catholic school principal in Los Angeles. Today she is back in Kenya as the postulant director for new members of the Notre Dame community.

Sister Judith (Judy) taught the upper grades at Holy Family School in Honolulu for four years. She also served as an administrator for inner-city Catholic schools in Los Angeles, and one year in Peru.

Sister Mary taught at Star of the Sea Elementary School in Honolulu for five years, followed by 30 years in Kisumu, Kenya, where she started a “donkey cart ambulance service,” and at a refugee camp in the Sudan. She is now the outreach director at a free medical clinic for the homeless and uninsured in Sacramento, Calif.

Sister Karen spent four years at Star of the Sea School in Honolulu. She later ministered to the sick and dying in parishes and hospitals around the San Francisco Bay Area. For the past 18 years, she has been a certified chaplain at a hospital in Vermont.