SEATTLE – At the CCS Farmworker Center in Mount Vernon, farmworker families can sign up for adult education and leadership classes, connect with community resources and services, get assistance with food and clothing, and participate in art and cultural offerings.

The center and the network of support Catholic Community Services of Western Washington has created for farmworker families were showcased April 22-24 during a visit by the CEO of Catholic Charities USA and Catholic Charities representatives from around the country.

“It’s really a blessing to be in Seattle and I look forward to what I will learn in these coming days,” Kerry Alys Robinson, president and CEO of CCUSA, said at the April 22 opening lunch at the CCS campus in Seattle.

The convening was intended as “a conversation with other Catholic Charities (agencies) and learning how CCS in Western Washington does this,” said Mary Escobar Wahl, regional network builder for the CCS Northwest Region and manager of the Farmworker Center.

Although each Catholic Charities agency is unique in its structure and assessment of its community’s priority needs, Robinson said, “we’re connected across the country through this network of caritas and of mercy and of love. I find it extremely valuable when agencies can learn from one another about what has worked effectively,” she added.

Those gathered included representatives of Catholic Charities organizations in the California dioceses of Fresno, San Bernardino, Santa Rosa and Stockton, as well as dioceses in Venice, Florida; Sioux City, Iowa; Nashville, Tennessee; and Jackson, Mississippi. Also represented were Catholic Charities Housing in the Yakima diocese, Catholic Charities of Eastern Washington in the Spokane diocese and the Washington State Catholic Conference, the advocacy arm of the state’s bishops.

This was the first gathering of Catholic Charities agencies serving farmworker communities “with the purpose of sharing what we are doing, what the challenges are and what the success has been,” said Will Rice, agency director of CCS Northwest.

The participants were welcomed by Seattle Auxiliary Bishops Eusebio Elizondo and Frank Schuster, along with Michael Reichert, president and CEO of CCS, and key leaders of his staff.

“Thank you so much for blessing us by being here and being a force for good,” Bishop Schuster, chair of the CCS and Catholic Housing Services board of trustees, said in extending a welcome on behalf of Archbishop Paul D. Etienne.

Bishop Eusebio Elizondo, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee on Pastoral Care of Migrants, Refugees, and Travelers, reminded the group about the baptismal call to help brothers and sisters in need.

“Catholic Community Services … is a fantastic way to show as Christian Catholics that we do what we do because we are what we are,” Bishop Elizondo said. “We are disciples of the Lord, so we have to do what the Lord commands us to do.”

Helping parish outreach

CCS is among the largest of the 168 Catholic Charities agencies around the country, said Jane Stenson, CCUSA vice president for food and nutrition/poverty reduction strategies. Reichert, who has led CCS for since 1979, is the longest-tenured director in the nation, she added.

Reichert spoke to the group about the strong relationship CCS has had since the beginning with its archbishop and bishops, and his agency’s view that it is a duty “to do everything we can to unify with the ministries of the local church.”

One way CCS has done that in recent years is by creating three regional and two Latino network builder positions to help parishes around the archdiocese in outreach ministry.

“The concept is very simple,” Reichert said. “Go out into the community, talk with the pastors, talk with the parishes, talk with community members who aren’t part of the church and help them determine what that community needs to do to touch their most needy.”

The following day in Mount Vernon, CCS staff shared the mission and work of the Farmworker Center, including presentations that highlighted:

  • Community partners, including Skagit Legal, the state Employment Security Department and Skagit Valley College Adult Education.  
  • How the archdiocese’s Agape Service Project in Whatcom County and the Youth Migrant Project at St. Charles Parish in Burlington develop “committed Catholic youth” through summer encounter/service trips to local agricultural areas.
  • The Catholic Healthcare Collaboration-Community Health Worker program to support farmworkers and their families in Bellingham.

The final morning, April 24, included presentations from Catholic Charities organizations from Yakima, Spokane and Florida about their work with farmworker communities.

“I truly enjoy the opportunity to share what we do in our area with anyone who will listen,” said Peggy Rodriguez, Collier County regional director for Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Venice, Florida. In her county, farmworkers tend citrus groves, tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers and other crops. “It means so much to me to let people know what the need is out there,” Rodriguez added.

‘Ask and they come’

The idea for the April convening came last fall when Stenson made a site visit to Seattle to check on the Farm and Food Workers Relief Grant, a federal pandemic-related grant that awarded one-time payments of $600 to eligible people working on the front lines. CCS was among several Catholic Charities agencies around the country receiving a share of the grant funds, Stenson explained.

Nationally, CCUSA hasn’t worked with the farmworker population, she said, but with the grant winding down, “I was just trying to figure out, how do we continue to provide support?”

Although a lot of Catholic Charities agencies have community centers that distribute food and provide access to services, “here was this community center specifically for farmworkers,” Stenson said. “Having that in your name, that it’s a farmworker center, attracts attention from farmworkers, governments, other nonprofits trying to reach this population. This is an interesting approach,” she said.

Gathering several Catholic Charities agencies in Western Washington was an opportunity to not only share what CCS is doing to support farmworkers, but also for those agencies to share how they assist agricultural workers — and a chance for all to pick up ideas and strategies that may be useful in serving their communities.

Jeff Negrete, executive director of Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Fresno, said in an email that he has “long admired the impactful work” done by CCS under Reichert’s leadership, and has previously reached out to Jose Ortiz, a CCS network builder for Latino communities, for assistance and support.

“I hope to gain insights that will enable us to better serve and support our own community,” said Negrete, who noted 380,000 migrant farmworkers live in his region.

Reichert encouraged the participants from Catholic Charities agencies “to go home and think about how you might better engage the local church. What we’ve learned here is ask and they come,” he said.

As the convening drew to a close, the participants decided they would benefit by keeping in touch and establishing a CCUSA workgroup on service to farmworkers, with a goal of supporting Catholic Charities agencies that want to begin or broaden this work, Rice said.

“The needs of those that deliver us our daily food needs to have a light shining on it so communities can unite in supporting our brothers and sisters that are working in the farms,” he added.