Florida Catholic | Farmworker Sunday

A FARMWORKER SUNDAY SPECIAL REPORT

Meeting families’ needs

DENISE O’TOOLE KELLY | FLORIDA CATHOLIC MANAGING EDITOR

Redland's Migrant Associations Day Care Center at San Jose Mission in Tampa.

San Jose Mission in Dover is a collaborative effort between Catholic Charities Diocese of St. Petersburg and various governmental and social service agencies such as Redlands Christian Migrant Association who operates a day care center at the mission.
ED FOSTER JR. | FC FILE

Despite the progress in working toward better wages, farm work remains a profession in which it is difficult to adequately feed and house a family. According to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, the annual income is about $7,000 for a single worker and $10,000 for a family.

So Catholics around the state also measure success in expanding the safety net for farmworking families.

In the Dover area of the St. Petersburg Diocese, Catholic Charities operates San Jose Mission, which can accommodate 78 families whose breadwinners work in the nearby strawberry fields, packing house and nurseries.

“Our success is their feeling of safety at San Jose Mission, their feeling of security,” said Sabrina Burton Schultz of the diocese’s Office of Life Ministry. The mission will begin construction of 42 additional apartments, Schultz said.

In Homestead, 4,000 children from Sacred Heart Parish — many but not all from farmworking families — received backpacks full of school supplies because of the parish’s twinning relationship with St. John Neumann Parish in Miami.

Tom Comerford, a St. John Neumann parishioner who directs the Sacred Heart Outreach Center, points out that the outreach has also been instrumental in getting about 25 babies a month baptized.

“Catholics need to do a better job of evangelizing and being in solidarity with the poor!” he said.

ONE :: Agricultural laborers, advocates celebrate progress | TWO :: Immigrants' Rights, Workplace Safety
THREE :: Tomato Prices | FOUR :: Union Holds Ground | FIVE :: Meeting Families' Needs