Mariana Cassidy
The Caritas Award Recipient

Mariana Cassidy was born the oldest of nine children in West Orange and attended Our Lady of Lourdes Grammar School and West Orange High School.

She entered the Sisters of Charity in 1960 and served until 1970, where she attended the College of St. Elizabeth, and graduated in 1965, majoring in elementary education. Her teaching experience with the Sisters was in Teaneck, where she was assigned to grades 7 and 8.

In the summer of 1970, after leaving, Mariana taught in the Scotch Plains Fanwood School District as an English and Reading Specialist in the middle school. She then pursued a Master's Degree at William Paterson College in Reading Specialization and became supervisor of reading in the middle school and of the industrial arts in the high school.

Following this, she pursued a Master's Degree at Kean University in Supervision and then served as an Assistant Principal and later as Principal of an elementary school.

Retiring in 2007, she began her life as a volunteer for 25 years with the FISH Organization to assist the poor, the disenfranchised, and the elderly, where she spent 8 years in the Hope Hospice facility, giving back to the people of Scotch Plains, and then further continued at the Sisters of Charity at the Villa.

Mariana is still on her journey of hope and care to McAuley Nursing Home and St. Catherine of Caldwell, as well as Maris Stella in Harvey Cedars. Her life and expectations are consistent with the Sisters of Charity, who are committed, as she is, in living the Beatitudes of Jesus.