b. January 31, 1937

by Charles K. (Ken) McCotter, Christ Episcopal Church, New Bern, NC, 2016

Soon after Rosemary moved to New Bern in late 1991, Bishop Sid Sanders of the Diocese of East Carolina called her to establish a diocesan refugee ministry, because she had chaired one in Connecticut. He appointed a Board of Directors, with Rosemary as chairman, that met for the first time in April, 1992.

Rosemary visited churches around the diocese to ask them to sponsor refugees. She organized the board and three committees: personnel, publicity and finance. She served as both Diocesan Refugee Coordinator and Board Chairman for two years until a part time director was hired in 1994. She held the chairman’s position for nine years. By that time, Interfaith Refugee Ministry had sponsored 300 refugees and the budget was $250,000, with two staff members and an office. Over a hundred people had volunteered or contributed to the refugee ministry in her home church alone, which piloted the program. Thousands participated in eighteen Episcopal churches in the diocese.

During that same time period, Rosemary chaired a refugee sponsorship committee from Christ Church that sponsored thirteen cases most of whom were Bosnian. She also organized the New Bern Refugee Resettlement Committee composed of representatives of five churches. They worked together to sponsor the first of many Burmese families to arrive in New Bern. Today the program has a much larger budget, 21 employees, and has sponsored 3,017 refugees in churches of many denominations besides the Episcopal Church.

In 2003, Rosemary left Christ Church to help form a mission called Peace Church. As Outreach Chairman there, she initiated a program in 2005 – in cooperation with the Seventh Day Adventist Church and using the refugee resettlement model – called the Hurricane Katrina Resettlement Program. After they resettled a family of three persons, Bishop Daniels appointed her the Point Person in the New Bern area for this effort. She also recruited and trained eighteen other parishes to help. FEMA placed families with fifteen parishes for resettlement.

Late in 2009, Rosemary initiated a program called F.R.I.E.N.D.S. for peace for foreclosure prevention. Her multi-church volunteer committee assisted 50 families and saved 33 homes. The program set up access to counseling and financial training for participants. As Committee Chairman, she wrote the grants to fund the program and acted as case manager for twenty families that requested assistance over three and a half years.

Rosemary currently volunteers as Vice Chairman of Faith Connection, a multi-racial, multi-denominational interfaith organization in New Bern. In October 2015, Faith Connection established six new programs called the “Building Community Initiative” in response to the rising divide between the races in our town, state and nation. The Initiative is based on the premise of Dr. John Perkins, “If black people and white people do not work together they will not be able to solve the problems that beset our society.”

In 2012, the Interfaith Refugee Ministry established the “Rosemary Stark Award” to honor hard working volunteers. Rosemary received the first award. In 2015 the NAACP gave Rosemary its Community Service Award.