LYONS, NY — The fields and the orchards have gone to sleep, now dormant for the season — and have taken with them the livelihood they provided to those who labor there. The land, still full and green and lush with life just six weeks ago, now hides under a crystal blanket, the season’s first snowfall in a place where winter comes early.
The dirt roads that diverge behind these fields are interminably long, and narrow. Isolated farmhouses, many in deep need of attention and repair, sit alone on these empty roads, save for the cars and trucks parked about them. Surrounded by endless acres of farmland, and much too far apart from each other to be called neighbors, the houses hold the stories of those who dwell in them: Those who return each year to pick and prune and pack, and those who have built a life here with their families.
They come to Wayne County, NY — where there are more cows and apples than there are people — from countries where violence waits around every corner and poverty is their inheritance. They come with nothing but hope in their pockets, eager to work the jobs few Americans will do.
Sometimes, they are welcomed with kindness and help; but as often as not, they are met with scorn and suspicion. These days, they are faced with a force so powerful, it threatens to roll them over: ICE. A militia of ruthless men wearing gaiters and guns, who accost them indiscriminately at their jobs, at the grocery story, at their front door. When nowhere is safe, there is nowhere to go. And so, many here have retreated from life — whether documented or not — because in this climate of fear, it’s hard to live freely.
“Time and time again, families ask me: ‘Why do Americans hate us?’” says the Rev. Richard Witt, Executive Director of Rural & Migrant Ministry (RMM). “‘Why are they allowing such cruelty? We work hard, we contribute to their well-being, we strengthen the economy, we pay our taxes, we are responsible members of the community. Why is this separation of families happening?’”
For more than 40 years, RMM has worked first-hand with thousands of families in Wayne County and throughout the state to fight for an end to entrenched, systemic injustice in rural New York. RMM’s work has led to advocacy, litigation, and historic legislation. It has taken shape in standing alongside farmworkers on their journey toward justice; working with community members to develop cooperative businesses; nurturing the next generation of grass-roots leaders; and an array of programs such as English classes, financial literacy workshops and know-your-rights trainings.
Although not a social services provider, RMM is currently delivering meals to those who are hungry — the men, women and children who have been cut by the double-edged sword of family separations and the recent government shutdown.
RMM has partnered with the Heavenly HARVST Foundation to distribute 15,000 meals to rural and farmworking families in New York — made possible by a very generous donation from Jan Willem van Bergen Henegouwen, who worked in the top ranks of the hospitality industry for nearly three decades and served as Board Vice Chair of Heavenly HARVST for a number of years. The meals — which include offerings such as vegetarian 3-bean chili and macaroni bolognese — are produced by Hope Kitchen, under the umbrella of Heavenly HARVST.
Van Bergen has spent a lifetime serving others, through philanthropy, advocacy and grass-roots volunteer work. Born in the Netherlands to a prominent, devoutly religious family, he was sent as a 10-year-old boy to live with the Jesuits and study for the priesthood — something not uncommon in Europe at that time. Though van Bergen eventually left the seminary as a young man (“I wanted to see the world,” he says), the principle of service to God and to others that he learned there has guided him throughout his life.
Though he leads a global life, van Bergen is deeply tied to the parish of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in New York City, where he is a Lector-Intercessors, and can be found serving meals to those in need on Saturday mornings. He has underwritten the cost of more than 5,000 meals for the church to distribute, and has provided funding for Fulbright Scholarships through the Netherland-America Foundation.
Van Bergen also serves as a Eucharist Minister, Lector-Intercessors, and Acolyte-Crucifer at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in East Hampton, where he assisted Rev. Witt in celebrating the Eucharist on a recent Sunday morning. From that encounter, a partnership was born and a plan was hatched: Van Bergen would arrange for the donation of 15,000 meals, shipped from New York City to RMM’s Liturgia Rural Worker Education Center in the Western New York community of Lyons.
On a snowy November morning, a truck arrived at Liturgia with seven chest-high pallets of meals, in boxes of 12; by that afternoon, a corps of RMM volunteers had already begun distributing the food. A portion of the meals will go to the local food pantry, which has been hard-hit by a lack of funding; to allies who will distribute boxes to students from the nearby Sodus Central School District; and to Wayne Action for Racial Equality (WARE), which serves, among others, a large population of Jamaican seasonal farmworkers who have been left stranded here — now jobless, but unable to return home due to the devastation of Hurricane Melissa.
The rest of the meals — along with a separate donation of pernil (pork shoulder) and fresh produce from the Hispanic Federation, a longtime supporter of RMM — will be delivered by RMM and volunteers. Nearly 25 volunteers will fan out across the community to put food in the hands of those who need it most: Those now deprived of their main breadwinner — as many as 50 percent of families served by RMM in Western New York have lost at least one relative to detention or deportation; and those affected by the government shutdown — although, contrary to a common trope, even those few immigrants who are eligible for SNAP benefits are typically too proud to accept them.
All told, roughly 500 families, including nearly 750 children, will receive meals in Wayne, Oswego and Cayuga counties in the Finger Lakes. RMM will also deliver meals through its centers serving Sullivan, Orange and Ulster counties in the Hudson Valley, and Suffolk County on the East End of Long Island.
As the sun set on Wednesday and a downpour turned the recent snow to mud puddles, RMM volunteer Beth Ares crammed her Prius with roughly 60 boxes of meals at Liturgia. Some 12 miles up the road, Ares pulled into a mobile home park, where a warren of trailers, cars and cats spread out in all directions. After circling the road three times, she located the correct lot number, welcomed by carpet of fallen leaves and a small dog, yipping in the window. Soon, a young woman and her sister — the oldest and the youngest of four children who live there — came out to receive the donations. The family would pass along a large portion of the meals to their neighbors in the trailer park, many of them farmworkers, the young woman said. As she and her sister ferried the boxes inside, she spoke of her plans for college. She and her siblings have all been involved in RMM’s Youth Empowerment Program, she said.
The timing of the meals could not have been more fortunate: Their father was deported to Mexico just last week, after having lived in the U.S. for nearly 25 years. He worked full-time in construction and was “the go-to neighborhood handyman,” the young woman said. He was working with a lawyer and was attending regular immigration hearings, but — despite his clean record — was deported anyway. The family is now left without an adequate source of income.
And yet, his children, all U.S. citizens, remain hopeful. “We love him, and we have each other,” the young woman said, as she and her sister retreated inside.
Closing the car door behind her, Ares broke down in tears. “Why is this happening?” she sobbed. “It’s just so unfair. These are beautiful people.”
| Gittel Evangelist serves as Communications Coordinator at Rural & Migrant Ministry. Reach her at [email protected]. |