She was on track for a professional running career, then a fractured foot changed everything.
Sister Stephanie Baliga, who lives and works at Chicago’s Mission of Our Lady of the Angels, told WTTW that running shaped her from childhood. “I started running when I was 9, and running became my life,” Baliga said. “It was how I defined myself and who I was.”
At the University of Illinois, Baliga was the sixth-fastest freshman runner in the nation. She trained for hours a day and was preparing for a professional career.
As a sophomore, she fractured her foot. She later traded time on the track for prayer and decided she wanted to devote her life to God.
“Jesus saw me for who I was,” Baliga told WGN 9 News. “He was not looking for my straight A’s or my fast running times; he was just seeking to love me wherever I was at.”
Now Baliga uses running to support the mission’s food pantry. For the past 15 years, she has run the Chicago Marathon to raise money for it.
Father Bob Lombardo, who opened the Mission of Our Lady of the Angels, told WTTW the area includes many people who are not Catholic, but the need remains high.
“Right now, this area has many, many non-Catholics living in it, and yet there are still people that have great need,” Lombardo said. “As we like to say, we do what we do because we’re Catholic, not because the people we serve are Catholic.”
Baliga has also encouraged young people to join the Team OLA marathon team. According to the mission’s website, the team has “sacrificed thousands of hours training” from 2011 to 2025 and raised more than $2.6 million.
“We serve about 400 to 500 families in person every Tuesday and we send about 300 deliveries to senior citizens between Monday and Tuesday each week,” Baliga said of the food pantry. “It totally changed the way I live my life.”
She told WGN 9 News that marathon fundraising helped grow the pantry and keep it going during COVID-19.
“The marathon funding was key to expanding the pantry in 2018, 2019, and 2020,” she said, “and was very key to us sustaining an extremely large pantry during the pandemic.”
This fall, Baliga and nearly 200 Team OLA members plan to run the Chicago Marathon for the 16th straight year. Their goal is to raise $500,000 this year.
The team ran the city’s half marathon on June 10 as preparation and raised $16,000. The full marathon team has raised more than $184,000 so far.
The mission’s website describes the team’s purpose this way: “Raise awareness of Mission of Our Lady of the Angels; offer up sacrifices of time, energy, and physical discomfort for the Mission and those it serves; raise funds for the Mission of Our Lady of the Angels; and have fun.”
“You’re like, ‘Woah, look at all those zeros! That’s a lot of zeros,’” Baliga said about the 15-year fundraising total. “The Lord provides,” she added to WGN 9 News. “God’s will is whatever is in front of you right now.”
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