By 1997 she raised enough money to open the Paraclete Center. Sister Ann herself contends that her real motivation for opening the center lay in the insistence of South Boston parents who yearned for after school programs that were both fun and educational that could rival the already numerous options in athletics for neighborhood children. The program quickly blossomed into an important neighborhood institution with Sister Ann at the forefront.
Sister Ann's next major move would take her far away from South Boston, to the heart of Africa. She was approached in December 1999 to participate in Women Waging Peace, a program being launched at Harvard's Kennedy School. Through Women Waging Peace Sister Ann met Aloisea Inyumba, the governor of Rwanda's Kigali-Ngali province. The governor urged Sister Ann to come visit the impoverished African nation still reeling from the effects of the devastating genocide in 1994. She made her first visit to the country in June of 2002 and made the journey again 1 year later.
