On a summer day in Monitor, Washington, children pour into a tent and are greeted by volunteers. They are getting ready for another day of learning and having fun with their friends while their parents head to the fields to pick cherries, pears and those famous Washington apples. They are the children of the thousands of workers that travel to Washington’s central valley each year to cultivate and harvest the summer crops that will be sold across the country.
And for these children pictured below, while their parents are away from sunup to sundown, a tent in their camp is their summer school.
Catholic Extension Society proudly supports the Literacy Wagon program, run by the Diocese of Yakima. The program addresses the need for summer learning and activities for the children of the workers. Run by a team of seminarians from the diocese, volunteers, librarians and local teachers, the Literacy Wagon brings books, education in reading and writing, and activities to migrant camps across the state.
The program was launched in 2017, with seed funding from Saints Faith, Hope and Charity Parish in Winnetka, Illinois. Catholic Extension Society connected the parish to the Literacy Wagon as part of our Parish Partnership program.
Now, a parish from the Lone Star State has stepped in to ensure that this innovative program continues.
Going outside their own community
Father Sean Horrigan (below) is the pastor of Christ the Redeemer Catholic Church in Houston, Texas. He personally witnessed the impact of the Literacy Wagon in the summer of 2022 during an immersion trip for pastors organized by Catholic Extension Society.
He was moved by the experience.
“The children I met there are just lovely kids, and their parents are working hard in the hot sun. When I was there it was 108 degrees,” Father Horrigan recalled.
When he returned home, he urged his congregation to support the program for their 2023 Lenten almsgiving campaign.
Father Horrigan invited Father Jesús Mariscal (pictured below) from the Diocese of Yakima to speak to parishioners at Mass just days before Lent. Father Mariscal helped launch the Literacy Wagon, as well as many other migrant ministries over the years.
Empowering children to dream
Ordained in 2019, Father Mariscal has a strong connection to the Central Washington farmworkers. His father first came to Washington to pick fruit, and after he passed away, Father Mariscal worked alongside his mother and siblings in the fields as a family.
His mother knew he’d be a priest one day. As a seminarian and now as a priest, he has always stayed connected to the laborers in the fields. Catholic Extension Society supported his seminarian education.
Speaking before Christ the Redeemer’s congregation, he drove home the importance of supporting the Literacy Wagon.
“It’s not the most fancy summer camp like you may have here, but it’s a beautiful environment that we try to provide for these children so they can dare to dream, so they can continue to learn, so they can continue to grow in their imagination and be inspired to be doctors, engineers or whatever they want to be.”
Every kid has a right to dream regardless of where this child is from.”
The impact of partnership
Parishioners at Christ the Redeemer went on to raise tens of thousands of dollars to support the Literacy Wagon program and migrant ministry. The money raised will help the diocese continue these vital ministries for years to come.
In June 2023 three Christ the Redeemer parishioners and staff members, pictured below with Father Mariscal, traveled with Catholic Extension Society to Central Washington so they could witness the impact of their almsgiving.
They celebrated Mass, presided by Diocese of Yakima Bishop Joseph Tyson, with the migrant families at a camp seen below. They went to the cherry fields where the workers pick crops in the intense summer heat, and they visited a Literacy Wagon site where those workers’ children learn, grow in faith and form new friendships each day.
“It was incredible to see our parish rally around the Literacy Wagon and all of the other programs that Catholic Extension Society continues to support here,” said Megan Dillingham, director of development and stewardship at Christ the Redeemer, pictured below (right) visiting the Literacy Wagon.
She continued, “I couldn’t be prouder to be part of this community and everything we were able to do. Now to be able to come and see it for ourselves, it’s been incredible. I can’t wait to get back and tell the parishioners what we’ve seen and all of the good work that’s being done here.”
Parish partnerships like this not only make an enormous difference in the lives of the poor, but they also help transform the donor parish.
Carrie Taylor, director of communications at Christ the Redeemer pictured below, explained,
We are a people of mission. It is what we are called to do: Go out and experience God and those communities outside of our own.”
“When we deprive ourselves of that, when we don’t go out of the bubbles that we have, we deprive ourselves of experiencing the rich complexity of our faith and of God, who reveals himself to us through others, especially those who do not walk the same path as us,” Taylor concluded.
Become a parish partner
With a compelling list of urgent projects to support our Church, Catholic Extension Society has created a turnkey fundraising program that is easily adapted for any parish and provides materials and guidance. Visit this page to learn more about Catholic Extension Society’s Parish Partnership program. Please contact Natalie Donatello at ndonatello@catholicextension.org for more information.
