HANOVER -- Throughout Clare Noonan's life, one word has remained constant: simplicity.

Our Lady of the Angels in Hanover, her home parish for 42 years, is a humble church. Like many on the South Shore, it resembles its Puritan neighbors, with its wholesome white construction and big sunny windows unadorned by stained glass. As the founder of Mercy Sews, Noonan has led volunteers in sewing thousands of dresses for girls in the poorest regions of Africa. She founded and still leads the parish's Simple Sandwiches ministry, in which she and over 20 volunteers make 500 cold-cut sandwiches a month for hungry and homeless people. The sandwiches are divided between Father Bill's and MainSpring's homeless resource centers in Quincy and Brockton.

"There's something very joyful about actually being involved in hands-on doing something," she said, "and that's why the group really has been connected together so well, because they get that kind of hands-on joy to know that what they make that morning, someone will be eating of it that day that really needs to have some food."

Around the time she founded Simple Sandwiches, she joined the St. Mary of the Portiuncula Order of Secular Franciscans. She is the minister of her fraternity of about 25 volunteers and organizes the annual Live Nativities at the Cardinal Cushing Center in Hanover. She was drawn to the Center's Portiuncula Chapel, the final resting place of Cardinal Richard Cushing and an exact replica of the one in Assisi, since she was a little girl. She and her fellow Secular Franciscans celebrate devotions there. Their mission is to "spread St. Francis's peace and love" wherever they go.

"I try to live my life in a simple, peaceful way," Noonan said. "I try to be a peacemaker whenever I can, and I think that's the way to live."

Raising three children meant she often had to be the peacemaker at home. When there are disagreements within her fraternity, she steps in.

"Different issues come up, and we try to work through it in a humble (way), humility is an attribute of St. Francis also," she said.

Humility is also one of the traits for which the Archdiocese of Boston gives Cheverus Awards each year. The awards, named for Boston's first bishop, go to men and women who have dedicated their lives to serving the Church with quiet fidelity. Noonan, 73, was one of 101 people who received Cheverus Awards last year.

"Clare Noonan has been a dedicated member of Our Lady of the Angels Parish for many years, generously offering her time and faith in service to our community," Pastor Father Chris Hickey said when nominating Noonan for the award.

He added, "She has been a hands-on volunteer while remaining a generous, faithful, and spiritual parishioner."

At first, she thought the email informing her she won the award was a scam. That day, she and her husband of 50 years, David Noonan, had been talking about how senior citizens often fall prey to email scams. But David convinced her it was legitimate.

"I'm greatly, greatly honored for this award," she said.

Clare Noonan attended the award ceremony at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross last November, where Archbishop Richard G. Henning gave her the medal in front of her family.

"I want them to see what wonderful things the Catholic Church does," she said.

Noonan was born in Quincy, the daughter of Philip, a plumber, and Marjorie, a homemaker. It was Marjorie who taught Noonan how to sew and instilled in her a devotion to St. Francis. Her brother's middle name was Francis, and of course, she was named after St. Clare. She grew up attending Mass and grammar school at St. Thomas More Parish in Braintree, which was the center of her life.

"Our whole family's social life was around it, the things we did," she recalled.

Her life now revolves around Our Lady of the Angels, which has been her "anchor," especially now that she is retired. In Marjorie's final years, she lived with her daughter and son-in-law. Father Hickey personally came to their home to give Marjorie Holy Communion and keep her company.

"Even in that time when I could not do a lot of volunteering work myself, the church stepped forward and helped me," Clare Noonan said.

She and David met while attending Archbishop Williams High School in Braintree. It's a cliche, she said, but it's true -- communication has kept them married for so long.

"We talk a lot," she said. "We talk over coffee in the morning. We talk in the later afternoon, before dinnertime. We've always connected."

She earned a degree in economics at UMass Amherst and worked as a buyer at Filene's in Boston before becoming a stay-at-home mom. When her children grew older, she worked part-time at the Cardinal Cushing School in Hanover, teaching children with special needs.

"I think you learn to take each person on an individual basis," she said, "and you learn what strengths and weaknesses the children have, and you try to impart peace to them when they're not feeling peace. And you try to bring out the things in them, the gifts that God has given them."

Every child she met had a gift, whether it was in art, music, kindness, or simply having a beautiful smile. She believes everyone she has ever met has their own gift.

"There's a lot of people on the periphery of life that have beautiful gifts to give," she said. "And I think as a Franciscan, and also just as a Christian, that we're responsible for bringing them, allowing those gifts to flourish."

She founded Mercy Sews in 2016, the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy. The ministry was inspired by the annual visits of Bishop Dennis Kofi Agbenyadzi of the Diocese of Berberati in the Central African Republic to Our Lady of the Angels. The bishop, whose diocese is in one of the poorest countries on Earth, spent much of his ministry with tribal communities. Hearing this, Noonan and another parishioner had the idea of sewing dresses for African girls who had very few clothes. In their first year, Noonan and her volunteers sewed 250 dresses. Seeing photos of girls wearing dresses she made was "a life-changing experience."

"I realized that something I made in my house," she said, "something very simple, out of a piece of fabric and a few materials, it's amazing when you see a picture come back from Africa and say, 'I made that dress that's on the back of a child that has really nothing to wear.'"