Most, if not all, of the 1,000 registered families at Our Lady of Fatima Church know Jack Costa on a first-name basis.
“Our Lady of Fatima Church has basically been my second home,” said Costa, 69, who has been a member of the Cumberland parish since 1972.
Costa has served the parish in numerous capacities in his nearly 50 years at Our Lady of Fatima Church. He has been an officer for the parish’s feast committee, bazaar committee and Holy Name Society. He has organized fundraisers and chaired parish committees to promote the annual Catholic Charity Appeal and the recent Grateful for God’s Providence Campaign.
“Jack Costa is a very dedicated and generous parishioner,” said Father Fernando Cabral who nominated Costa for a Lumen Gentium Award for Parish Service. “Jack is everywhere, whenever there is a need not just in our church but in the community as well.”
Costa, a husband and father of two grown children, said he has devoted much of his free time to serve his parish and community to show gratitude for the many blessings he has enjoyed since immigrating to the United States from Portugal as a young boy.
“God put me in this great country,” Costa said. “The only way I could pay him back was doing the things I do with my parish. I try to help those who cannot help themselves.”
Costa was eight years old when his parents and five siblings emigrated from mainland Portugal, where his father had worked to support the family as a barber. On his days off, Costa’s father rode his bicycle from town to town to cut hair and make extra money, but the family was still poor. They lived with Costa’s grandparents in a house that had no running water or electricity.
In 1961, the family immigrated and settled in Cumberland.
Those formative years were tough, probably not ideal, but Costa said he learned firsthand the value of hard work, which he never shied away from. As a teenager, he worked his way up in the mills to become a loom fixer and then a weaver. When he left the mills in 1968, he was making around $160 a week, decent money back then.
Costa’s work ethic and natural business sense served him well as he went on to become successful managing restaurants and later in the export/import business. He worked 50 to 60 hours a week, but with his wife, Maria, still managed to raise a family and serve his parish community. In 1970, he became an American citizen.
“I feel like God brought me to America for a reason,” said Costa, who is now retired. “And here we are.”
