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TRIBUTE TO PASTOR WANDA MCNEILL

OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I recognize Pastor Wanda McNeill for her 17 years of tireless work as Executive Director of Washington, DC’s Southeast Ministry, which she helped create in 1990. Pastor McNeill, on the surface, was not an obvious candidate to take on such work in an inner city neighborhood, having been born and raised in Sioux City, Iowa. But Pastor McNeill has touched the lives of thousands in Washington, DC, and this city will be forever grateful for her dedication to those in need. We wish her well and Godspeed as she leaves our Nation’s Capital to accept a call to lead a parish in Lake Preston, South Dakota.

Whereas Pastor Wanda McNeill is a spiritual leader who, through her faith in God, has answered His call by dedicating her life’s work to serving those in need; Whereas Pastor Wanda McNeill was born on February 21, 1944 in Sioux City, Iowa, and was raised on a family farm along with her sister Stella by William and Louise Edwards; Whereas Pastor Wanda McNeill in her earlier life was a foster parent with her late husband Frank McNeill to 12 children; Whereas Pastor Wanda McNeill earned a Diploma in Nursing at Iowa Lutheran Hospital, Des Moines, Iowa in 1965 and has been a licensed Registered Nurse in Iowa, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC; Whereas Pastor Wanda McNeill served the citizens of North Carolina as a Vista Volunteer working with low-income families from 1966 to 1968, and then as a public health nurse until 1984, and during that time, founded the Yancey County Hospice Agency in Burnsville, North Carolina in 1982; Whereas Pastor Wanda McNeill earned a B.S. in professional arts, psychology emphasis, from St. Joseph’s College, North Windham, Massachusetts in 1984, graduated from Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in 1988, was ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in 1989, and earned a doctorate of ministry from Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 2005; Whereas Pastor Wanda McNeill has held the positions of Assistant Pastor, Associate Pastor, and Pastor at the Lutheran Church of Reformation in Washington, DC, since 1990 and has served our Capitol Hill neighborhood faithfully for 17 years; Whereas Pastor Wanda McNeill co-founded a non-profit social justice ministry named Southeast Ministry in the Anacostia neighborhood of southeast Washington, DC, in 1990 in response to expressed community needs for educational, cultural, and employment programs that lead those in need to self-sufficiency; Whereas Pastor Wanda McNeill through Southeast Ministry has reached thousands of men and women with education and job-related information services, increased their basic education skills and assisted them in passing the GED, prepared them to secure jobs through a curriculum of African-American culture, history, parenting, health and vocational assessment and in placement in training, employment and education; Whereas Pastor Wanda McNeill’s personal decorations include the Community Service Award from Anacostia-Congress Heights Partnership in 1991, Women of Achievement Award from the Zonta Club of Washington, DC, in 2000, and the Bob Woodson Award for special accomplishments from the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise in 2005;

Resolved, That the United States House of Representatives recognizes Pastor Wanda McNeill for her commitment to a life of service to the citizens of the United States, especially the poor and underprivileged who society has passed by, for her continued dedication to this life-long calling, and for touching the lives of thousands with her work in the poorest neighborhoods of the District of Columbia, our Nation’s Capital.