NAME: Office For Farmworker MinistryþþFOUNDED: 1971 in Apopka, Fla., by four members of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, a Roman Catholic religious order.þþMISSION: To help about 40,000 farm laborers who work in orange groves, hothouses and fern and mushroom farms in the region around Apopka in central Florida, 15 miles north of Orlando. The nuns call themselves midwives because they help the workers establish their own organizations and services, including a health clinic, a home-buying program, a rental housing program, a legal-aid office and two credit unions.þþÿWe open the door, but they go through it,ÿ said Sister Cathy Gorman, a founder and coordinator of the ministry. Tomorrow, Sister Cathy and her fellow nuns at the ministry are to be honored by the Orlando chapter of Amnesty International.þþHISTORY: In 1970, inspired by the example of the labor organizer Cesar Chavez, two teaching nuns from Baltimore traveled to central Florida with the idea of starting a ministry to farmworkers. Through the Roman Catholic diocese of Orlando, they visited a worker's camp near Apopka, and were so appalled by what they saw that they called their supervisor in Baltimore from a pay phone and asked for permission to stay. Initially, the Orlando diocese financed their efforts, buying a house in a poor neighborhood for four nuns to live in and paying them stipend salaries.þþSister Cathy said they spent much of the first year trying to figure out where the farmworkers lived and worked. Because there was no central place where workers congregated, the nuns visited churches, ate in restaurants frequented by workers and volunteered at schools to learn more about the community and its needs.þþCONSTITUENCY: Primarily Hispanic, Haitian and African-American workers. When the ministry started, Sister Cathy said, most workers were African-American and lived in the area surrounding Apopka. Over time, migrant workers from Mexico came to predominate, joined by a smaller number of Haitian immigrants. The pay that workers receive has changed little in the years since she started the ministry, Sister Cathy said, adding that the piece rate is supposed to equal the minimum wage but often does not. Alcohol abuse has long been a problem, she said, and drug abuse and gang violence are now common, as well. This fall, three young members of the community died violently, one a homicide, one a suicide and one killed in an auto accident that appeared to be alcohol-related, Sister Cathy said. ÿThese are kids I saw born,ÿ she said. ÿNow, I am burying them.ÿþþFINANCES: More than half of the $200,000 annual budget comes from the Catholic church. The rest is from fund-raisers, grants and donations, most of them local.þþ
Source: NY Times
