Edna Lonergan

As a nurse, occupational and massage therapist and gerontologist, Sister Edna Lonergan is a leading advocate promoting the benefits of intergenerational programs.

Through her vision and guidance, St. Ann Center became the first dementia-specific day care in Milwaukee and one of the first fully integrated intergenerational day cares in the United States—serving children, the frail elderly and adults with disabilities and their caregivers in one homelike setting. Since opening St. Ann Center’s Stein Campus on Milwaukee’s south side in 1999, she replicated the center at the Bucyrus Campus, opened in 2015, on the city’s near north side—one of the poorest and most underserved areas of Milwaukee.