Deacon Cord one of 42 sharing stories in traveling People of Hope exhibit
In this video screenshot, Deacon John Cord shares a story of providing hope by helping others. His story was one of 42 selected from hundreds of nationwide submissions to be featured in Catholic Charities USA’s traveling People of Hope exhibit.
By Natalie Hoefer
Deacon John Cord recalls the evening during a prayer service in a county jail when a woman “who looked far too young” to be incarcerated asked for prayers her baby, to whom she’d given birth two weeks prior at the jail.
“She was arrested for stealing the car seat Child Protective Services told her she would need to take the baby home,” he says.
She surrendered her newborn to the baby’s father and to her 16-year-old brother and had heard nothing from them since. Deacon Cord and others searched for her family the next day, to no avail.
That evening, as he and a team from Catholic Charities ministered to those in a homeless encampment, he says a “teenage boy carrying a dirty blanket approached us asking for skim milk … ‘because that’s what babies drink.’ ”
The story that follows is one of hope made possible by everyday people helping those on the margins.
It is one of 42 experiences chosen from hundreds of nationwide submissions to be shared as short videos in Catholic Charities USA’s new People of Hope traveling exhibit.
The exhibit will tour primarily the eastern portion of the country in 2026, with a stop in Louisville, Ky., on May 14-16 (see below for more details). It will tour western states in 2027, and places missed or that want a repeat visit in 2028.
There will most likely be one or more stops in central and southern Indiana in 2027, although the schedule for that year has not been announced yet, says Kevin Brennan, vice president of communications for Catholic Charities USA.
The traveling exhibit is made possible by a $5 million grant from the Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment, Inc., through its National Storytelling Initiative on Christian Faith and Life.
“They approached us about applying for the grant,” says Brennan. “We put our heads together about how we could share inspiring stories of faith and came up with the idea for the traveling exhibit.”
A call was sent out to Catholic Charities offices throughout the country seeking short video clips of employees and volunteers sharing stories of hope brought about by serving those in need.
Deacon Cord recalls Dana Stone, then-archdiocesan director of appeals and creative services, asking him to stop by her office last summer to “talk about some of the interesting people I’d encountered in prison ministry,” he says.
“She’d done that before, so I didn’t think anything of it,” adds Deacon Cord, who was archdiocesan coordinator of Catholic Charities-Corrections Ministries at the time. “So, she started recording with her cell phone, and we chatted for about 30 to 40 minutes.”
One of the stories he shared was about the young mother and her baby. As it turns out, Stone clipped that story from the video and submitted it to Catholic Charities USA for possible inclusion in the People of Hope traveling exhibit.
“We chose this story because Deacon John captured and demonstrated how transformative Correction Ministry can be,” says David Bethuram, archdiocesan executive director of Catholic Charities. “It reminds people of the importance of authentic encounter and our call to love and accompany those in need.”
Brennan and others at Catholic Charities USA agreed.
The organization flew Deacon Cord—who retired from his archdiocesan role at the end of 2025 but still serves in St. Ambrose Parish in Seymour—his wife Gwen and the other selected storytellers and their spouses, all expenses paid, to its headquarters in Washington to make professional videos for the exhibit.
The “museum of hope” is housed in a retrofitted tractor-trailer that holds about 30 visitors at a time, says Brennan.
“Our hope is that people walk away inspired to serve others as we’re called to do by Christ, bringing hope by neighbors helping neighbors,” he adds.
Deacon Cord’s wishes are similar.
“I hope that this tour brings people to a much wider understanding of what it is to be called a Christian,” he says. “It’s about our vertical relationship with Christ on the cross, [like] when Jesus added to the numbers [of the Church] every day, and they reached out to people and invited them to the faith.
“That’s the outstretched arms of Jesus Christ, and that’s what this tour is showing—the work of Jesus with arms outstretched, working for others through others.”
(The People of Hope exhibit can be seen in Louisville at Waterfront Park under the Big Four Bridge on May 14-16. The event is free and open to the public from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. on Thursday and Friday, and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on Saturday. For more information about the exhibit and its tour stops, go to peopleofhope.us.) †
