Susan Kramer has always been the type of person people gravitate toward when they are struggling with a life dilemma or need advice and support.

“People just come to me. They just talk to me about their problems,” said Kramer, who spent 32 years working in New York City public schools as a paraprofessional, a school secretary and then an English as a new language teacher.

For years, friends and others with whom she crossed paths told her she would make a great chaplain. After retiring at the end of the 2020–21 school year, she saw an ad for a course with the United States Chaplain Corps, a private, ecumenical organization, and applied.

Kramer obtained her chaplain certification in June 2022 after completing about a year of intensive training. As a chaplain, she said, her job is to provide “ministry of presence.” She helps defuse the pain and ease the tension of people she counsels by listening empathetically and providing emotional support.

Kramer has faced many challenges in life, including raising her two children on her own. “My life experience has made me who I am,” she said. “What I’ve experienced in my own life, the pain I went through, has molded me and given me strength.”

She also had a strong foundation provided by loving parents — her mother, a school secretary, and her father, a city police officer. “They gave me love, not riches,” she said. “That’s what people need: love and security.”

The U.S. Chaplain Corps’ mission is to help anyone who is in need “without discrimination, by providing support, respect and kindness.” Chaplains can train to work in many different settings, including the military, police and fire departments, hospitals and workplaces.

“Sometimes it’s just about listening, looking at someone and having eye contact,” said Kramer, who taught English language learners at Passages Academy, a District 79 program for students in secure detention.

With her teaching background, Kramer was drawn to the corps’ new Junior Chaps Division for teens ages 13 to 18. The program, which graduated its first 10 junior chaps earlier this year, trains them to be leaders in their schools and encourages them to become full chaplains when they become adults.

As a trainer, Kramer helps teach leadership skills to the teenagers and gets them involved in the community. On their visits to nursing homes, she said, the teens in the first class witnessed a lot of pain as they interacted with elderly people who were lonely or debilitated by disease.

“We’re there for their spiritual needs,” she said. “We also comfort them. We give them hope; we give them help.”

Kramer emphasized that chaplains serve anyone in need of spiritual guidance; they do not minister to people in a religious capacity.

“We’re chaplains for the world,” she said. “We’re chaplains for humanity. We’re chaplains for humanity’s pain.”