From Whim to Wonder: What We Can Learn from the Rogue Nuns behind Operation Breakthrough

The idea to open a daycare came to Sister Berta Sailer on a Friday in 1969. She and her partner, Sister Corita Busanmass, opened the doors to Kansas City’s first daycare in a Catholic Church by the next Monday. What they started without planning or resources has grown into one of the largest early learning center of its kind in the country. How the two nuns and the cast of characters they attracted grew and nourished this center holds lessons for all of us in how to nourish a mission. You’ll also get a behind-the-scenes look into the two women who have given a chance to more than 8,000 children and their families in Kansas City and who have left a legacy for us all.

Loring Leifer, the author of Angles with Angles: The Rogue Nuns behind Operation Breakthrough, became a writer because she likes to find things—whether it’s the latest medical information, a lost mitten, or a missing fact in the lives of two nuns. She's followed caddies around Winged Foot Country Club, investigated art forgeries, and tracked down railway romances—all in articles for local and national publications. A former design editor of Interiors magazine, she has written several books for Richard Saul Wurman, TED conference creator. These include Information Anxiety; Follow the Yellow Brick Road: Learning to Give, Take, and Use Instructions; Who’s Really Who? The 1000 most creative individuals in the USA; and Drugs: Prescription, Non-Prescription, and Herbal. She also co-wrote Younger Voices, Stronger Choices.