Funeral services were pending this week for Susan Valerie Weight, director of the Cardinal McIntyre Fund for Charity, who died Jan. 6 from an illness. She was 55.

Weight had been with the McIntyre Fund since 1990, as associate director and then (since 2000) as director. From 1990 to 2000, she also served as deputy assistant to the executive director of Catholic Charities of Los Angeles.

"Susan was very committed to the Church, and gave 100 percent in everything she did," said Msgr. Gregory Cox, executive director of Catholic Charities of Los Angeles. "She was very adaptable in handling a number of different assignments, and that came through in how she became so involved in helping put together a plan for our disaster response efforts following the 1992 riots and the 1994 Northridge earthquake."

Msgr. Cox also praised Weight's "great love" for the parishes with whom she worked in assisting "the neediest of those in need" that were served by the Cardinal McIntyre Fund. Established in November 1951 as the Archbishop's Fund for Charity (then renamed years later for its founder, Cardinal James Francis McIntyre), the program assists people with immediate, emergency, crisis expenses ranging from a night's lodging for a suddenly homeless family or a few days' food supply to emergency medical care, a late utility bill or funeral expenses.

Funds are authorized at the parish level by pastors; the parishes are then reimbursed by the McIntyre Fund, which is administered by a Board of Directors. At Weight's suggestion, the board over the years included more pastors --- those directly involved in making the disbursements to those in need.

The Fund --- which does not replace welfare or other forms of public assistance --- is supported by an annual parish collection traditionally held the first Sunday in May.

"What people do by giving," Weight told The Tidings in a 1998 article, "is share in the works of mercy that the McIntyre Fund enables. People who contribute are giving miracles."

She noted that the Fund's use to help defray emergency medical expenses had allowed hundreds of babies to be born safely at local hospitals.

"Jesus asks us to help those who have no other last resort," Weight noted. "And giving to the Fund can provide the difference between a person eating or not eating, between a person spending a cold night in a shelter or shivering on the street."

Before Weight came to the work for the archdiocese in 1990, she had spent many years working in media and marketing administrative positions. During the 1970s and early 1980s she was director of public relations and volunteer services at Queen of Angels Hospital, Hollywood; Los Angeles New Hospital/Beverly Hills Medical Center; and Beverly Glen Hospital.

She also became active in the battle against drunk driving. She served as president and CEO of Californians for Sober Highways Inc., a nonprofit educational association that gave testimony on, and helped formulate, legislation and policy on issues of driving and substance abuse. She was chair of the L.A. County Blue Ribbon Commission on Drinking Driving Program Standards, and served on the county's Commission on Alcoholism.

From 1983 to 1990, she served in a dual capacity as executive director of Driver Safety Schools, an agency that worked with the county and state, and consultant for Susan Valerie Weight & Associates, a lobbying firm specializing in areas of general business, retail marketing and health care/substance abuse.

Weight, who attended Holy Family Church in Glendale, is survived by a daughter and two grandchildren.