Thread: Nuns raise money for migrant workers(St. Helena Island,SC)

Nuns raise money for migrant workers
Published Fri, May 18, 2007

BOB SOFALY | The Gazette
Sister Sheila Byrne of the Franciscan Center on St. Helena Island takes a quick inventory of food to be given to migrant families as they come to Beaufort for the upcoming tomato harvest.


By SANDRA WALSH
swalsh@beaufortgazette.com
843-986-5538
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Nearly 2,000 migrant workers, primarily from Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, arrive on St. Helena Island every June for about a month to pick tomatoes for packing houses.
Some of the workers migrate to the area from Florida harvests and have a few bucks saved up; others come with nothing, said Sister Sheila Byrne, 68, who runs the Franciscan Center on St. Helena Island with Sister Stella Breen, 77. Both are from County Cork, Ireland.

For the past nine years, the nuns have greeted migrant workers with boxes filled with food to live on until they receive their first paycheck, usually after a week's

work.

The boxes are filled with flour, rice, pinto beans, tuna, canned peaches, cooking oil, soup, cookies, cereal and other non-perishable essentials.

But only a small part of the effort is about food, Byrne said.

"The main purpose is to raise awareness, a consciousness," Byrne said, "to let people in northern Beaufort County know that people come here with very little to harvest the tomato crop on St. Helena

Island."

This year the sisters plan to hand out 400 boxes of food, each costing about $23.

Each box feeds about four workers, the same number of workers who occupy one room in the migrant camp row houses on Seaside Road.

Money to help pay for the boxes is funneled in from residents on Fripp, Dataw and Spring islands, but the nuns say they can always use more to make the boxes

better.

The nuns will be accepting donations until Sunday, in time to prepare for volunteers to pack the boxes June 9 and deliver them to 10 migrant camps a week later.

"When you see the smiles on their faces, after working 14-hour days, you realize you didn't really do anything," said Pam Galvin, a Dataw resident and volunteer coordinator for the food drive.

The center has more than 100 volunteers from the area to help migrant workers with food and clothes and to learn English.

The nuns also help migrant workers with the paperwork needed to change their legal status from "temporary worker" to "resident alien" or "citizen."

Byrne said that in the midst of a national debate about what to do with the country's illegal immigrants, the center's efforts have been scrutinized by a few people who don't think the migrant workers should be helped at all.

"We get the occasional negative phone call," Byrne said. "Beaufort County has always been open to helping immigrants; it's only recently we hear negative conversation about immigrants. That has to be

nipped."

The Franciscan Center was founded on St. Helena Island 26 years ago. The Archdiocese of Charleston owns the center.
http://www.beaufortgazette.com/local_ne ... 8325c.html

The center has more than 100 volunteers from the area to help migrant workers with food and clothes and to learn English.

Good, let these 100 feed the illegals.

Originally Posted by had_enuf

The center has more than 100 volunteers from the area to help migrant workers with food and clothes and to learn English.

Good, let these 100 feed the illegals.

wounder if they ever really do anything for the local needy ? Naaaaaaa wouldn't make no news for them.

These migrants sound like H-2A visa workers, which means they're legal. If that is the case, I really don't have a problem with volunteers helping them eat until they receive their first paycheck.

"The nuns also help migrant workers with the paperwork needed to change their legal status from "temporary worker" to "resident alien" or "citizen."

I really don't see where we need another few million uneducated citizens to take care of.