BROOKLYN, Ill. — Sr. Julia Huiskamp, all 4 feet and 10 inches of her, oversees everything at the Thomas Terry Community Center: the food pantry, the child care, the fundraising — even the transportation. Her resourcefulness has been honed over six decades as a social worker.

Huiskamp, now 90, has barely slowed from overdrive in a life spent in service to others as a Daughter of Charity, the Catholic religious community she joined back when Dwight Eisenhower was president.

She has no plans to stop.

“I got a little gas left in the tank,” Huiskamp says.

In 2023, she founded the community center, a converted pair of apartments in the Thomas Terry housing projects. It has become a service hub for residents of the long-neglected Metro East village a few miles from downtown St. Louis.

For decades, Huiskamp was a mainstay for outreach efforts in East St. Louis and, before that, the West Side of Chicago. Her constancy is unusual but not unheard of for sisters so well-known for their late-in-life vigor that they have been the subjects of studies on healthy aging.

Daughters of Charity, with a mission of service to the poor, continue their work as long as they are able, said Belinda Davis, a spokesperson for the community. She knows of some sisters — there are 285 in the North American province that includes the St. Louis area — who are in their early 80s and still working. Sisters don’t marry or have children. They live together, work together and worship together.

“That’s why they go into community,” said Davis. “Their life is dedicated to whatever their discipline is.”

Still, Huiskamp is an outlier.

Two years ago, at age 88, she “retired” from her longtime position in East St. Louis, where she had started an after-school program that eventually expanded to five community centers offering a range of services.

Even among a team of can-doers, her stamina stood out, said Toni Amuhammad, the executive director of Catholic Urban Programs, which manages those five community centers in East St. Louis.

“She was there before anyone else was out of bed,” Amuhammad said. “She would beat the milk delivery person.”

To no one’s surprise, Huiskamp’s retirement was unsuccessful.

Age has now snagged 4 inches from her height, she says, and pushed her to use a cane. But it has taken little else. Five days a week, she’s at Thomas Terry. In her spare time, she tends a garden outside the Cahokia Heights rental she shares with another sister and reads nonfiction, mostly history and biographies.

“It’s fascinating the way a person affects so many other people,” she said.

Pulled by faith

Huiskamp grew up in Keokuk, Iowa, near the state’s border with Missouri. Her father was a banker, and her mother stayed home to raise four children. Huiskamp was the oldest. Farm culture — the planting season, the price of soybeans — permeated daily life.

“In simpler times and in small towns, there wasn’t a big gap between the rich and the poor,” she said. “People had more contact with each other.”

At home, her parents stressed empathy and connection. When Huiskamp left for Manhattanville University in Purchase, New York, she decided to study political science. At the same time, her faith was pulling on her.

“I felt increasingly concerned about the poor,” she said.

After graduation, she returned to Keokuk and took a job with the town’s newspaper, the Daily Gate City. She loved listening to people’s stories. But the pull had become stronger.

In 1959, she entered the Daughters of Charity. Among her vows was one of poverty — living simply to align herself with those she was serving.

Her first job was teaching middle school. After four years, she was sent by her superiors to study social work at St. Louis University. When she graduated in 1967, she moved to Chicago and lived on the top floor of the settlement house where she worked, near East Garfield Park.

The next year, the Rev. Martin Luther King was assassinated.

“The whole West Side exploded,” said Huiskamp. “It was just fire, burning and looting.”

She and the other sisters hustled to get milk, food and diapers to the families in their settlement. Across the city, thousands of police officers and National Guard troops patrolled. Eleven people were killed.

“It was a little bit scary,” she said. “But we trusted the neighborhood. We never had a window broken.”

Finding something to do

In 1985, Huiskamp was told she would be relocating to East St. Louis. As a Daughter of Charity, she took a vow of obedience, promising to follow the directives of the community’s leaders.

“I was not a bit happy about coming,” she said with a laugh. “They told me, ‘See what you can find to do,’ which made me really mad.”

The timing proved to be right. The housing projects in East St. Louis were in crisis. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development had seized control from the East St. Louis Housing Authority after its executive director embezzled $1.4 million.

Huiskamp saw her opening. One of the buildings in the Griffin Homes complex had been “trashed,” she said. What if she could transform it into a place to hold summer camp for children?

HUD officials told her she could use whatever space she needed.

She found donors and enlisted a contractor from a local church. In the fall, they turned the camp into an after-school program. Soon, four other nearby housing projects were involved. About 300 kids came for tutoring, games and snacks.

Alexandra Graham was an 11-year-old living in Griffin Homes when she met Huiskamp. The middle schooler needed to borrow the “N” encyclopedia to write a report on the Nile River. After her assignment was done, she kept coming back.

Graham studied social work in college and did her practicum with Huiskamp. It almost made her switch careers.

“I thought, ‘This is too much. How does she do it?’” said Graham, who is now the executive director of an East St. Louis nonprofit called Join Hands ESL.

“I don’t know anyone who is as diligent as she is,” Graham said. “She treats everyone with dignity.”

Moving mountains

Huiskamp’s three major career stops — Chicago, East St. Louis and Brooklyn — share the same challenges: concentrated poverty, disinvestment, low educational outcomes.

“There’s a terrible divide today between people who have a ton of money and people who have nothing,” she said.

Big cities, at least, enjoy advantages such as transportation systems and cultural opportunities. But small towns like Brooklyn have hidden advantages. Everyone knows everyone. Trust develops quickly.

Huiskamp serves on the board of the St. Clair County Housing Authority, and the agency agreed to provide her with space and utilities in Thomas Terry. She tapped Sr. Mary Walz, also a social worker, to be her partner.

“You don’t have to have a job description,” Walz, 79, remembers Huiskamp saying.

Walz didn’t hesitate.

“Julia can move mountains,” she said.

The women went door to door in the apartments and surrounding homes, introducing themselves.

What are you interested in, they asked residents. What do you need?

Rides to appointments, they told the sisters. A safe place for kids to go after school. Help paying utility bills and stretching grocery budgets. Somewhere to get a cup of coffee.

Brooklyn, the first majority-Black settlement to incorporate in the United States, was an outpost on the Underground Railroad. For more than a century, it thrived, with a population that peaked at about 2,500 — four times what it is now.

In the 1960s, when housing restrictions for African Americans were lifted, many residents left Brooklyn. Factories that provided employment disappeared. A small commercial district gave way to strip clubs and liquor stores. Railroad companies gobbled up large swaths of land.

Every so often, preservation efforts for the historic village arise. Coverage by the Chicago Tribune a year ago prompted interest from lawmakers and a Chicago-based nonprofit to collaborate with residents on a renewal plan.

Huiskamp wishes for an economic engine that could produce local jobs. For now, she and Walz are addressing whatever immediate concerns they can.

“We’re a conduit between people who want to help and people who need help,” Huiskamp said.

The Thomas Terry coat closet is always open. So is the food pantry. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, kids come for after-school activities. On Wednesdays, volunteers — recruited by Huiskamp — arrive in vans to ferry people to the grocery store or other errands. Huiskamp and Walz have become pros at helping residents fill out paperwork for food aid or energy assistance.

On a recent morning, Darrius Cole picked up a voucher for a holiday turkey he won in a raffle. Valerie Wofford microwaved a potato for lunch. Tina Smith walked over to get a ride to Barnes-Jewish Hospital for chemotherapy.

“I really don’t know what we would do without this,” said Mike Devine, who also stopped by.

Huiskamp, who will be 91 in four months, downplays her longevity. For one thing, she has genes on her side. All of her siblings are still living, and a grandmother made it to 106.

But mainly, the work is what fuels her.

“It’s not brain surgery,” she said. “You just plug along and do what you can do.”