Susan Conroy, Love in Living Action, and Mother Teresa.
SOUTH PORTLAND – In 2022, Susan Conroy became the founder and executive director at Love in Living Action, a registered nonprofit corporation. Conroy said the core objective of the organization is to extend a helping hand and share love with individuals requiring fundamental care, support, and assistance. Conroy hails from South Portland and has devoted her life in love, compassion, and service.
Love in Living Action is a charitable nonprofit organization dedicated to providing essential assistance and spreading joy to the elderly and those facing adversity in the local community. Conroy says the name of the organization was inspired by Mother Teresa because Mother Teresa said that we would not be judged at the end of our lives by how much money we made but buy how well we put our love into action.
Conroy traces her journey of selfless service back to her teenage years when she began assisting her grandparents during their time of need. She said that as soon as she turned 21, she traveled across the world to India with the dream of helping Mother Teresa. Conroy went to Calcutta to serve the destitute and dying. It was a life-changing trip for Conroy, and she spent days with Mother Teresa assisting at the “Home for the Dying” in Calcutta. She says it was there that she discovered that she had a gift for this type of caring and helping.
“Mother Teresa invited anyone with ‘hands to serve and a heart to love’ to join her and the sisters in assisting the poorest of the poor. I felt very blessed all my life, and I wanted so much to share the abundance of my love and joy and willing hands with others who could use some extra compassion, happiness, and assistance,” said Conroy.
She said as she flew home from Calcutta, her heart was “on fire to keep loving and praying and serving, and so the love has continued to flow.” Living in South Portland, she realized she didn’t have to travel across the world to find those in need of “willing hands and a loving heart.”
“From the earliest dawn of reason, from my earliest childhood, I have loved God, and I learned that we love God whom we cannot see by loving and serving whose around us whom we can see. So, I want to love and serve continuously, as best I can,” Conroy said.
Conroy said the community’s reception of Love in Living Action has been heartwarming. Not only have they welcomed these services, but they have also generously contributed to support the organization’s initiatives. She says the community has supported this cause, offering additional assistance like lawn care and home-cooked meals, highlighting the unity and kindness present in South Portland.
The organization primarily focuses on helping community members in their 80s and 90s, especially those who are homebound, unable to drive, or living in solitude. Services range from delivering home-cooked meals to accompanying individuals to doctor’s appointments and providing light housekeeping. Conroy said joy is part of the gift the organization shares. Conroy quoted something Mother Teresa used to say, “We give most when give with joy.”
The organization has also extended its care to cancer patients.
Reflecting on her time with Mother Teresa, Conroy describes it as pure joy. She said she had the privilege of knowing Mother Teresa for 11 years, in Calcutta and in the South Bronx of Harlem, New York. She said this time changed her direction in life from a career in economics to a calling to share love and care to those in need. “Now, my definition of success has nothing at all to do with the normal American dream; it is now more in line with what the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, ‘To know that even one life has breathed a little easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded,’” Conroy said.
Mother Teresa’s influence also led Conroy to become an author and public speaker. Conroy said Mother Teresa gave her blessing and approval to write her first book, “Mother Teresa’s Lesson of Love and Secrets of Sanctity.” Conroy said her time spent with Mother Teresa were “the most spiritually nourishing experiences of my life, and they filled my heart with a fervent and unending desire to be as close with God as I possibly could be.” Conroy carries that message through her own work with Love Living in Action.
For more information, visit https://loveinlivingaction.org/about-us.
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