About Us

OLA church

How We Got Started

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Our Mission

Today, in our world, we witness the pervasiveness of poverty, malnutrition, and lack of education and the dire and debilitating consequences of all of these. Due to the severity of these conditions, we have chosen to re-examine and broaden our mission statement to address a critical need, one which requires expansion of our purpose beyond our originally stated goals, established in 2005, and one that seeks to transcend boundaries of our United States. Our goal is to encompass the enrichment of humanity with specific focus paid to the eradication of socially, economically, and intellectually indigent societies, both domestically and internationally.

We believe that inspiring the participation of the poor who share our same intention will succeed in correlating to an improvement in living standards and lives, in general. As demonstrated throughout time, we further believe that investment in humankind will bring about educational enrichment and produce a wide array of opportunities yielding more than mere economic benefits. Moreover, be endorsing programs that create an enhanced economic environment in impoverished areas, the upshot to create an intrinsic leadership model with focus on promoting self-sufficiency and sustainable practices. The expansion of our goals will enable us to impact children of all ages anywhere in the world within poverty-stricken communities. Additionally, our objective is to assist organizations who believe in the principles of a guiding entrepreneurial spirit that focuses on investing in philosophies and programs that achieve self-sustainability rather than simply handing out money, that, as time has demonstrated, perpetuates dependency.

sketch of church on mountain top

Board of Directors

profile picture for Michele Ostertag

Michele Ostertag

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Frank Cooke

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Bernadette Whitney

Secretary / Treasurer

Bernadette joined the Board in 2022. She has been involved with non-profit organizations as a volunteer, organizer and fundraiser for over 35 years.

Her calling to help USFF began upon the death of her father, Willy Ostertag, the founder of United St. Francis Foundation. She hopes to continue his legacy of providing a hand-up to the most vulnerable children in the world.

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Joe Galligan

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