Sister Helen Vinton: Impacting Agriculture

In September 2025, Sisters of Providence General Superior Sister Dawn Tomaszewski, SP, received a letter from Lorna Bourg, the President and Executive Director of the Southern Mutual Help Association (SMHA).
In the letter, Bourg explained to Sister Dawn how she had recently learned about impacts the late Sister Helen Vinton, SP, had made during her time ministering with SMHA.

After stops in Indiana and Illinois ministering as a teacher and in publications and policy research in Iowa, Sister Helen traveled to Louisiana to begin ministering for the organization in 1980.

She ministered with SMHA until 2023, and passed away in August of that year.

Lasting Legacy

During her time with the organization, Sister Helen wore many hats, but her legacy of impact remains to this day.

“(Mill manager) Tommy Thibodeaux sat next to me at a Town Hall political event,” Bourg explained in the letter. “Tommy, for 20 minutes, explained — ‘what I may not know’ — the impact Sister Helen had on Louisiana’s agriculture. ‘She taught us how important [it is] to keep learning and not just keep doing what, for generations, we just kept doing.’”

During the conversation, Thibodeaux told Bourg, “Being the mill manager, I heard how angry the sugar cane farmers were, at what they believed at first: ‘Who is she, coming in and thinking she can teach us?’ When Sister Helen convinced farmer Jackie Judice that farmers could make more money by having less trash in their sugar cane and reduce the input to improve their soil and spend less [on] pesticides and, finally, make the non-farmers very happy to not have trash all over the roads and too much spraying from planes, it was really something!”

According to Bourg, Thibodeaux said Sister Helen’s persistent explaining paid off as she and Judice “turned those griping farmers around.”

An ‘Extraordinary Educator’

Judice, Thibodeaux said, won the Highest Yield award the first year he attempted what Sister Helen suggested.

“Yep! Sister Helen was an extraordinary educator, always about care for the earth, the rewards for farmers’ hard work and making a better economy and, finally, improving the health of all,” Bourg wrote in her letter.

“I know what a mentor Helen was for me — calm, wise, strategic.” Bourg went on to describe Sister Helen’s attitude as “ win, win, win for all” and lauded Helen’s ability “to make change happen.” Bourg further praised Sister Helen’s work with Jackie Judice. “How blessed her 43 years were in Acadiana, in Louisiana — and for me!”

Originally published in the winter 2026 issue of HOPE magazine.