The Most Reverend Dr. Lorraine J. Bouffard
After graduating with honors from St. Joseph College in 1963, Dr. Lorraine Bouffard was accepted into the Peace Corps. She spent 22 months in the Gbarng, a village in the interior of Liberia, where her regular assignment was teaching elementary classes. On her own initiative, she began a school for non-leprous children in a leper colony 15 miles away in Suacoko.
Lorraine's goal was to teach the children English, the national language, so that they could be assimilated into regular public school. This was accomplished when the President’s wife, Mrs. Tubman, brought them to an orphanage in the capital city of Monrovia.
Picked as one of ten outstanding volunteers from her group of 80, she was sent to San Francisco State University to assist in the training of their replacement group.
From 1965 to her retirement in 1994, Pastor Bouffard was an elementary and special education teacher/administrator, mainly at Hartford’s West Middle School. In 1970, she received a Master of Arts in Special Education and later completed a 6th Year Degree from UConn in Administration of Special Education.
At McDonough School, Lorraine taught remedial math, reading and creative writing in grades 1-6. She received the Teacher of the Year Award in 1992.
During most of her teaching career, Lorraine advocated for teachers’ rights and educational reformacted as Building Representative for the American Federation of Teachers. She filled various local and state offices with members of the Council for Exceptional Children.
Two years after ordination to the priesthood, Lorraine received her M.A. from Hartford Seminary. At that time, she was both the pastor of Sts. Francis and Claire Ecumenical Catholic Church in Hartford and a volunteer chaplain at the York Correctional Facility in Niantic from 1995 to 2009, where she won the Volunteer of the Year Award in 1996. During the following year, she completed one unit of Clinical Pastoral Education Training at York under the auspices of Hartford Hospital and Hartford Seminary.
Pastor Bouffard was elected bishop after the resignation of Bishop Richard Cardarelli, who consecrated her in May of 2000. She received her Doctorate from Hartford Seminary the very next year and, in 2002, was presented with the Gettemy Significant Ministry Award by the seminary’s Alumni Council.
In 2003, the Parkville Senior Center acknowledged her two-year volunteer commitment managing the Grace Episcopal Food Pantry.
Presently, she performs weekly liturgy for residents at the Bidwell and Westside Nursing Homes in Manchester. Before they were closed, she supplied services to residents at Cedarcrest Hospital and City of Hartford Rehabilitation Center.
Since 1995, Pastor Bouffard has been the host, producer and distributor of her own monthly show, "Voices in the Wilderness", taped at West Hartford Community Television. Shows for the last 6 months can be found on westhartfordtv.org, and some episodes can be watched on YouTube using the links provided on this website.