By Jay Sorgi • Posted November 20, 2025

Amy Stoner may be retiring but she will always be giving her warm hugs to people in everyday service and social responsibility.

Thousands of those hugs, along with her constant guiding leadership and action, have wrapped compassion around the area’s hungry, addicted, pregnant, unhoused and under-resourced people of God in 38 years across various arms of Catholic Charities of Philadelphia.

Stoner, director of the Community-Based and Housing and Homeless Services Division of Catholic Charities, is preparing to step out of her role and embrace new opportunities in retirement.

She will retain deep gratitude for what the Lord has given her: A chance to be a difference maker for countless Philadelphians.

“My heart’s just full of gratitude for the opportunity that has been given to me to serve and lead throughout my career with Catholic Charities,” said Stoner. “There are so many people I’m grateful for that had confidence in me and my abilities and gave me these opportunities.”

Her career spans numerous ministries within Catholic Charities beginning in November 1987, when she served as a pregnancy and adoption worker to assist expecting mothers.

“I felt like this is what God’s calling me to do. I became very passionate about it, and it really just kind of grew from there,” she said.

That growth took her to development of after-school and summer programs for children in some of Philadelphia’s most challenged neighborhoods. It expanded to creating programs and serving the unhoused, people in recovery, refugees and immigrants, encompassing much of the broad range of social services that Catholic Charities offers.

It’s in that movement across various areas of ministry that leads Stoner to see how God has shaped her talents, and the people around her, to do the work of caring for God’s people.

“Sometimes I would question: ‘I don’t know anything about refugee families. I don’t know how I would be able to help them or serve them in any way,’” she admitted.

“Then I remember somebody saying this quote that said, ‘God does not call the qualified. Rather, he qualifies the called.’ I always thought that (God) would place the right people in my life to help me carry that out, and that’s what has happened. I’m really grateful for the people that he’s placed in my life that are qualified to carry out the mission and to serve.”

The list of those people is incredibly long, but one includes Msgr. William C. Kaufman, the pastor of St. Pius X Parish in Broomall who has remained close to Stoner’s heart throughout her career.

“I met him back in 1995 when I was a newly appointed administrator at our Northeast site,” Stoner said.

“He not only was so helpful to me and supportive in so many ways that carried on for decades, but one of the things that I really learned from him and witnessed on countless occasions was his care and compassion for the poor. I always said I want to emulate the way he truly cares.”

That genuine service stands out to most people who have encountered her compassionate interpersonal presence at events ranging from Philadelphia’s Mother’s Day Brunch for women in need to an annual overnight retreat for them at Malvern Retreat House.

She has directed and coordinated every detail with those events, from programs and logistics to opportunities to share those aforementioned hugs.

“The one thing that has stayed true is the mission and honoring the value and dignity of every human being that remains first and foremost. Everybody’s treated with respect and dignity and seen as a child of God,” Stoner said.

“How many times do we see the face of Jesus in whom we encounter every day in our programs? They’re struggling, and they’re triumphing, too. It’s like being open to seeing. You can’t do this ministry if you don’t have any compassion and love for others, especially those that you can’t relate to on the surface.”

A lifetime of relating to others has led to Stoner taking many honors into retirement, including being named a Dame in the Order of St. Sylvester by Pope Francis in 2019. Those external honors don’t motivate her.

She is motivated to live during retirement with the same ethos of service, the same demand that she believes God has for everyone when facing someone in need.

“I always kind of go back to one of my favorite hymns, the ‘Servant Song’ (by Donna McMargill). It’s the line, ‘What do you want of me, Lord? Where do you want me to serve you?’ That really resonates with me because I always look at it as, ‘If this is what I’m being asked to do or called to do, then I’m going to do it,’” Stoner said.

“You cannot turn your back. You can’t.”