By Nancy Frazier O'Brien
"Safe & Sound" by TRISIS, winners of the
2013 Ministry Has Talent contest at Ministry Health Care
Move over, "American Idol." This year's winner of Ministry Health Care's the
"Ministry Has Talent" competition is TRISIS, made up of sisters Jessica, 17,
Jacqueline, 13, and Jasmine, 10, and their guitar-playing father, David
Winemiller, a Marshfield Clinic psychologist and consultant to Ministry Saint
Joseph's Hospital in Marshfield, Wis.
Winners of the competition — now in its seventh year — record a track on the
"Sing for Your Supper" Christmas CD, which raises money for the community meal
program at Agape Community Center in Milwaukee, which is also part of Ascension
Health's Milwaukee-based Ministry Health Care. "As a community center we want to
reach out to the rest of the (Ministry Health Care) system that is statewide,"
said Al Luzi, director of development at Agape Community Center. The
competition, he said, "highlights those hidden talents that aren't always
exhibited in the workplace."
Last year's winner, Stephanie Pacey, a patient access coordinator at Ministry
Saint Clare's Hospital in Weston, Wis., and Ministry Good Samaritan Health
Center in Merrill, Wis., also performs on the 2013 holiday CD.
Nearly 6,000 CDs have been sold in the project's first six years, helping the
center to serve more than 23,000 hot meals to children, families and seniors.
The Agape center's meal program is a community affair, with more than 1,500
volunteers from 23 different churches, synagogues, civic groups and businesses
preparing and serving hot meals three nights a week, 52 weeks a year.
The "Sing for Your Supper" project also has a wide community reach. In
addition to Ministry Health Care's 2012 and 2013 talent competition winners,
performers this year include six Milwaukee-area high schools, the Milwaukee
Police Department Band, the Vianney/St. Dominic strings, St. Robert Middle
School Choir, the Greater Galilee and Calvary Baptist church choirs and choirs
from Marquette University and Cardinal Stritch University.
The song TRISIS chose to sing on the CD, an adaptation of Taylor Swift's
"Safe & Sound," is a change from their usual repertoire of songs from the
1920s to 1950s, inspired by their grandmother's records.