By Jay Sorgi • Posted February 20, 2026

A Northeast Philadelphia Catholic ministry has found new leaders and a neighbor in empowering pregnant and parenting women in need for their family’s journey.

Annie’s Home, which began in 2025 as a residence for pregnant mothers in crisis situations to receive the support they need, has added Kim Capista as a new executive director while building a new partnership in mission with the Cenacle, a Catholic Charities of Philadelphia organization that also offers parenting and pregnancy services.

Programs offered by staff of the Cenacle include parenting and pregnancy education, diaper and food pantries, free laundry services, classes in ESL (English as a Second Language), health and wellness, and financial literacy workshops, along with other family services that augment Annie’s Home’s own residential support for women.

“We share space with them, and we just have a very good, really close relationship,” Capista said of the Cenacle, a group that resides with Annie’s Home within the Capuchin Franciscans’ Padre Pio Center in Frankford.

“They host a monthly dinner, which our moms have been able to take part in. They have a lot of resources that our moms could take advantage of. They’ve reached out to me when they know of someone who might need housing for us to help them with resources or potentially moving in,” Capista said.

“We go back and forth down there, and they come up here a lot. We keep all their information up here, let our moms know anytime there’s something going on that they should be part of. It’s really helped with a sense of community for the moms.”

That community also includes the presence of the Capuchins within the building’s walls, a group of friars whom Capista calls “a calming presence, regular guys.” They spend time in service with the moms and young children who live within Annie’s Home.

“We have relationships with the friars. It’s so wonderful to be able to have that presence of God in your workplace and in your daily goings about,” Capista said.

“A group of seminarians spent almost a month over at the friary, and in their time here, they were at the house doing projects for us, helping volunteer, and it’s just been so nice to have that relationship with them. It’s really special.”

Capista, a Vineland, New Jersey native and Drexel Hill resident, became Annie’s Home’s new executive director in August 2025.

“I have been working in the non-profit industry for five to six years, and I really was looking for something that would align more closely with my Catholic faith,” she said. “The more I learned about what Annie’s Home was doing, I really felt so compelled to join the organization.”

Capista recently joined the Catholic Church herself, having married a Catholic husband and raising their children, who are 11 and 13, in the Catholic faith.

“About a year and a half ago, I said to myself, ‘This is where I need to be.’ After faithfully attending Mass for six years, I said, ‘This is where I belong,’” she said.

“A recent convert, I like to say I was on fire for the faith. I had reached a point in my life that I didn’t want to just go to work for a corporation. I really felt that at this point in my life, when I go to work every day, I need to be there doing some kind of good. God gives us gifts for a reason, to be used for His good.”

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Capista’s previous experience working at a crisis pregnancy center aligned with her career mission, but offered a more challenging atmosphere than what Annie’s Home gives the families that otherwise might not have an available home as they start their journey in motherhood.

“Working with the moms after they’ve chosen to give birth to their babies, (I found) so many women feel that they have no one in their corner. That really drives a lot of women to not know what their options might be when they’re pregnant in an unexpected pregnancy,” Capista said. “Annie’s Home is that helping hand to them, holding their hand while they’re going through their motherhood journey.”

A new program manager at Annie’s Home, Diamond Stern, works closely with moms who experienced similar things to her own journey.

“She herself went through some transitional housing as a young pregnant mom. Her passion is mothers and helping women,” Capista said.

“She’s brought such an energy to Annie’s home. She’s so positive. (In) her case management meetings with the moms, she’s got them creating vision boards and planning their year and their goals, and she’s made some really wonderful connections within the community as far as other resources that are available to them.”

Rosa Jimenez also has joined the Annie’s Home team as house manager, coming off of two years in international missionary work.

“She is so deeply rooted in her faith that she brings such a calming spirit here,” Capista said.

“She keeps everything flowing smoothly. She’ll take care of a mom when she’s newly postpartum and cook meals for them, which is above and beyond her job description, but her heart for the moms is just so, so evident.”

The enhanced staff and their partnership with the Cenacle allows Capista to see a growing vision for Annie’s Home and its reach in the Delaware Valley.

“We have ideas for more maternity homes or better programming, and this is just the start,” she said.

“We hope to see expansion, more women served, better programming for our moms. It’s just the beginning for Annie’s Home.”