St. Teresa of Calcutta was born in 1910 in Skopje, in present-day Macedonia, Mother Teresa joined the Sisters of Loreto religious congregation in Dublin, Ireland in 1928. As a Sister of Loreto, she taught geography at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta, India for twenty years. In 1950, she started her own religious congregation, the Missionaries of Charity, in order to minister to the poorest of the poor. To people throughout the world, Mother Teresa is an icon of goodness and compassion.

St. John Bosco who was born in Becchi, Italy in 1815, was the founder of a religious congregation known as the Salesians. He was also the co-founder of the Daughters of Mary, Help of Christians, an order of religious Sisters whose purpose was to help orphaned and destitute girls in Italy. He organized an association for the laity called the Salesian Cooperators. The Cooperators were to be activists, fully committed to helping the displaced and the destitute. Don Bosco became known as one of Europe's finest educators. By the end of his life, he and his religious congregation were helping 131,000 disadvantaged and orphaned children.

St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe who was born in 1894, was a Catholic priest and Conventual Franciscan Friar. In 1917 he founded the Militia Immaculatae, a worldwide movement that promotes consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary as a means of spiritual renewal. He established a friary which he named "The City of the Immaculate" near Warsaw, Poland. By 1939, the City of the Immaculate had become the largest Franciscan friary in the world. With very little money, he built one of the most advanced religious printing plants in all of Europe. During World War II, he provided shelter at his monastery for more than 2000 Jewish refugees. In 1941, Maximilian Kolbe was arrested by the Nazis, imprisoned and later transferred to Auschwitz Concentration Camp where he died. He was canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 10, 1982.