A 'driving' faith in Providence

Heather with her son Ezra.

The Sisters of Providence host a variety of events each year. At an upcoming dinner, one of our speakers will be Heather Tetzlaff Smith. Heather is a graduate of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College. She may be familiar to a wider audience as the creator of the “Providence Will Not Fail” blue bracelets available in the Gift Shop at Providence Center. We are inviting her to speak to a group on her personal relationship with Mother Theodore and her trust in Providence.

Heather is a life-long advocate for social change, spending 11 years working with victims of domestic violence. In 1998, shortly before the beatification of Mother Theodore, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

After her MS diagnosis, Heather’s activism shifted to fight for the health and well-being of others living with MS. Heather has raised more than $40,000 for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and has testified before a Food and Drug Administration panel regarding an MS drug. Her testimony inspired the FDA to return the drug to market, so that patients could have more choices in the medical care.

In her personal life, Heather is able to drive with hand controls. However, she does not have a vehicle that allows her to bring her needed scooter with her. We learned of this need when trying to make arrangements for her to come to campus for our upcoming dinner.  While we understood her challenges, as we have many sisters with similar needs at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, we were not sure how to help, other than to arrange transportation to our event.

She has recently entered a contest to obtain such a vehicle. The contest is in support of National Mobility Awareness Month in May. This may be a way we can help Heather, thank her for her work with women and people with MS and support her life-long trust in Providence.

We would like you to consider voting for Heather by visiting her page here. You are allowed to vote daily until May 13. On your first visit, enter the dealer code 965, which counts for an extra five votes. You can only enter the dealer code on your first visit. Note: this site often gets overwhelmed by voters and has problems loading. If that happens, just try again later.

Thank you for your support. If you would, please keep Heather’s needs and the needs of all people striving for greater mobility in your prayers.