Marlene Watkins is the author of Everyday Miracles of Lourdes and founder
of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospitality North American Volunteers, the first
Lourdes Hospitality of the Americas. In twenty years, Marlene has led over two hundred pilgrimages of more than six thousand selfless medical, adult, university and teen volunteers serving seriously ill and profoundly disabled pilgrims to Lourdes-France. Marlene has guided Lourdes Virtual Pilgrimage Experiences TM around the world and to millions on international television.Marlene is a wife, mother, grandmother and a Secular Franciscan. Marlene and her husband, Bill, live in Central New York or in the LourdesMobile RV traveling America-the-Beautiful as Roamin’ Catholics sharing the Gospel Message of Lourdes.

We are the first Lourdes Hospitality of the Americas and the first Hospitality outside Europe. We bring the seriously ill and disabled to Lourdes, France and serve the Sanctuary as volunteers. We evangelize through the Gospel Message of Lourdes sharing the grace of pilgrimage through Virtual Pilgrimage experiences to those unlikely or unable to make the physical journey to Europe.  We are volunteers, laity, clergy and religious, who lovingly serve the Immaculate Conception and her pilgrims both in the Sanctuary at France and back at home through living and sharing the Gospel Message of Lourdes. We are members of a Catholic Association united in prayer, evangelization and service within a charism of family centered in love reaching the sick and suffering, the poor and unloved.