Solidarity in Christ
ASHEVILLE — Teamwork can make all the difference when responding to a crisis such as a global pandemic that strikes the most vulnerable among us.
This was the situation Nick Haskell of the Blue Ridge Organizing Project and other people of goodwill in Asheville faced last year.
Local families were hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic – losing their jobs when businesses shut down and tourism evaporated, then finding it impossible to buy food, pay the rent or keep the lights on. More than 300 people in Buncombe County have died from the virus.
A broad coalition of churches and community groups has come together to act – and in the process, they have helped build up the Body of Christ.
Haskell, who has worked for nonprofits since 1989, explains, “To me, this isn’t charity, it is being brothers and sisters in Christ.”
Specifically as a result of the pandemic, the effort has grown from Haskell’s original intent with BROP – combating homelessness and drug addiction in West Asheville – into an interdenominational partnership of 15 churches banding together in solidarity to bring sorely-needed relief to local families. The group now includes Catholic Charities Diocese of Charlotte, the five Catholic parishes in Buncombe County, the diocese’s Asheville-area Hispanic Ministry, other community groups, as well as Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal, Anglican and other Christian churches.
“We focus ourselves on what the Catholic tradition calls the ‘corporal works of mercy.’ Any day you can accomplish one of the corporal works of mercy is a good day,” says Father Pat Cahill, pastor of St. Eugene Church, one of the participating parishes in the partnership.
“St. Eugene has a very giving spirit. The people always rise to the occasion, and the pandemic was particularly challenging. Our faith tells us that even if things don’t work out on our timeline, eventually everything is moving toward God’s greater glory.”
Catholic Ministries Respond
The partnership among BROP, churches and community groups has focused on helping low-income Hispanic families in the community.
It all started when Antonio Garcia, Hispanic Ministry coordinator for the Asheville Vicariate, and leaders at St. Eugene Parish contacted BROP about teaming up to raise money to provide grocery store gift cards for jobless Hispanic families in April 2020, soon after the pandemic began.
Many of the families served have five to seven people in their households and earn about $18,000 per year, which is considered deep poverty, Haskell notes.
“Initially, we raised money through local parishes and social media,” Haskell says. These efforts provided 173 families with $50 gift cards. However, “we quickly realized the need was much greater.”
As soon as that realization sank in, Haskell, Garcia and St. Eugene parishioners connected with Catholic Charities, which has been providing assistance to the area for decades and has a successful food pantry.
Jesse Boeckermann, Catholic Charities’ western regional director, says the partnership reflects the human spirit at its best.
“We have Catholic Charities working together with Hispanic Ministry in the Asheville Vicariate and then working together with the Blue Ridge Organizing Project to make this happen – to get food and other supplies to people in need,” says Boeckermann, marveling at what the teamwork has accomplished. “The project has taken on a life of its own.”
Because Catholic Charities’ food pantry isn’t accessible to families without transportation, the group then reached out to Comunidades de Base, faith leaders within the Hispanic community who host prayer groups in their homes. They developed a system in which leaders from Comunidades de Base contacted families in their neighborhoods and identified needs, particularly around food access but also personal hygiene products and baby-care items such as diapers and wipes.
Another team of volunteers meets at Catholic Charities and loads up SUVs and station wagons to bring the supplies to the mobile home community where each faith leader lives.
Over the past year, Catholic Charities, Hispanic Ministry and BROP have delivered food regularly to 322 families – serving nearly 1,200 people, half of whom are children.
“We feel like we’re doing what God called us to do and what Jesus called us to do,” says Boeckermann, noting the gratitude of those they serve and the depth of their struggles. “They’re dealing with something that many of us don’t have to deal with in life. It’s really great to be able to provide this service to hopefully move them from needing basic necessities to the next step, and someday moving to a better situation in life.”
But providing food was just the beginning. Access to health care and reliable medical information is a long-standing problem for many poor communities, but even more so during the pandemic.
Buncombe County Health Department recently had a supply of COVID-19 vaccines it wanted to get out to the local Hispanic community, so officials there reached out to Garcia and the Hispanic Ministry for help.
He and another volunteer hosted podcasts with two physicians, translated forms and medical information into Spanish, and distributed the information into the community.
The 14 faith leaders in Comunidades de Base worked to register anyone from their communities who wanted to receive the vaccine. Local churches, including St. Eugene, and a community college hosted vaccination clinics.
A St. Eugene volunteer involved with the effort said 3,000 people from the Hispanic community in Buncombe County – a population of about 18,000 – received the vaccine because of these joint efforts.
Teamwork and solidarity have been key to the successful effort.
“Blue Ridge Organizing Project was interested in this project because our focus has always been on building community and community leadership,” Haskell explains.
“Everyone is busy and tends to live in their own silos, be it religious, economic, race or neighborhood. This limits people and their capacity to address concerns impacting their family, and oftentimes they just cope with problems on their own. Blue Ridge Organizing Project wants to bring people together across these different boundaries through their faith institutions to see that many of their problems are community problems that need a community solution.”
Communities on the Mend
Although the pandemic has eased and the local economy is recovering, the team is discovering that many families still need help, including with paying rent and utility bills.
Many people haven’t been able to pay their bills while out of work during the pandemic, Haskell notes. During the height of the pandemic these bills were put on hold, but they are now due in large lump sums. Financial aid provided through grants and contributions is helping people to avoid eviction or utility shut-offs.
To help further, they are seeking to partner with other nonprofits to weatherize mobile homes, thereby lowering families’ utility costs and creating jobs, Haskell adds.
The group has also connected recently with Manna FoodBank, and with parishes in Candler, Swannanoa, Brevard and Burnsville to reach out and help more than 300 people in the more rural areas surrounding Asheville with free food, baby care supplies, masks and informational resources during a special MANNA Express event July 8 hosted at St. Joan of Arc Church.
“By working together, we have increased capacity to make positive change that helps everyone. This is the answer when in the Gospels people ask Jesus what the Kingdom of God looks like: everyone coming together, building relationships and working on solutions to the problems impacting their community,” Haskell says. “This is completely congruent with Catholic social teaching, including life and dignity of the human person, call to family, community and participation, rights and responsibilities, option for the poor and vulnerable, and solidarity. Our program allows congregations to exercise these values in the public square.”
Haskell is quick to note the resiliency of the local Hispanic community. “They do so much with so little,” he says. “Before the pandemic, they very rarely looked for assistance outside their own community, and each community has a fund that they contribute to, to help out families in need.”
During the COVID-19 response, Haskell reconnected with several families he knew from when he worked at Catholic Charities from 2014 to 2018. During his time there, he helped two groups of families evicted from mobile home parks that were dismantled and redeveloped into apartments. Haskell says it was a joy to work with the families again and to support neighborhood-level efforts to strengthen civic engagement and self-sufficiency.
“These folks are so generous and kind,” he says. “I like this project because it is not strictly charity but more self-help. These families are taking an active leadership role to make a difference in the lives of families in their community. It wouldn’t work without their leadership. It is also building stronger relationships among the families and connecting them to the Church.”
— Annie Ferguson, Correspondent
