CENTRAL FALLS / PAWTUCKET — With her husband detained due to his immigration status, a local mother suddenly found herself solely responsible for covering nearly $4,000 in monthly expenses to keep her three children clothed, fed and safe with a roof over their heads.
Her husband was the breadwinner of the family. As she did not have stable employment, she struggled to make ends meet, sometimes falling behind on her rent.
She worked wherever she could, from schools to driving for Uber, but her immigration status and the system’s barriers made steady employment nearly impossible.
On top of financial stress, her children carried the emotional weight of being separated from their father.
“Their young hearts were burdened with the pain of missing their father, a pain that no child should have to bear. One heartbreaking moment came when her young son told her he couldn’t sleep because, while visiting his father at the detention facility, he could only place his hand on a window to feel close to his dad, without being able to hug him,” Fuerza Laboral Executive Director Heiny Maldonado said in an interview with Rhode Island Catholic.
While the woman has been able to weather the storm thanks to assistance from the Central Falls Emergency Fund, there are many others like her still struggling out there.
“This is the power of community support, a force that can change lives and give hope in the darkest of times,” Maldonado said, noting how the USCCB’s Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), greatly helps Fuerza Laboral in its mission to help workers—especially immigrants, women, and low-wage earners—build real, long-term economic power.
“We focus on leadership development, workers’ rights, and the creation of worker-owned cooperatives because we’ve seen how transformative it is when people gain both a voice and ownership in their work.”
Fuerza Laboral, in Central Falls, and The George Wiley Center, based in Pawtucket, are two local anti-poverty agencies in Rhode Island that work with the Diocese of Providence in serving the needs of the less fortunate.
Both are recipients of funding from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ annual collection for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), its domestic anti-poverty initiative.
CCHD provides crucial support to both growing and longstanding organizations that promote justice, neighborhood improvement, and job creation for marginalized groups in both urban and rural communities across the United States.
In observance of the ninth World Day of the Poor, the USCCB collection will be taken in parishes across the diocese this weekend, November 22-23.
Bishop Bruce A. Lewandowski, C.Ss.R., serves as a member of the USCCB’s Subcommittee on the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.
“I’ve seen firsthand how Heiny Maldonado and the team at Fuerza Laboral provide information and education for members of our community,” Bishop Lewandowski said.
“For anyone starting a new business or those striving to understand state and federal labor laws, they are ready partners. This is just the kind of ‘poverty reduction’ organization that the Catholic Campaign for Human Development seeks to support. They are helping people help themselves. So many Rhode Islanders are better off because of the hard work of Fuerza Laboral.”
Maldonado said that CCHD’s support is vital to her organization.
“It gives us the flexibility to meet people where they are and walk with them as they learn new skills, organize with others, and begin to imagine something different for their families. A lot of our work doesn’t happen in classrooms, it happens in living rooms, in small meetings after work, in those moments when someone says, ‘I think we deserve better,’ and we help them build a path forward. CCHD funding makes those moments possible.”
The George Wiley Center normally coordinates a weekly food and fish distribution on Fridays, but this week there are even more people in line for sustenance than usual. And to serve the increased demand, a cadre of mutual aid community volunteers has joined the staff of the grassroots anti-poverty organization in response to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) crisis. The recent federal government shutdown halted food stamp benefits for nearly 42 million people across the country.
The George Wiley Center has organized to change policies to promote food security, including calling for a decrease in the number of pages of SNAP applications to make filing for assistance easier, as well as advocating for extra support during the holidays and when unemployment spikes.
Co-founded by many Catholic faith-based activists, including Richard Bidwell, and Henry and Carol Shelton, the George Wiley Center has kept the faith of organizing low-income communities, with a focus of being on the frontlines of organizing anti-poverty for more than 44 years.
In its mission of practicing Catholic Social Teaching on the frontlines, the Center has collaborated with partners in the diocese, such as co-hosting the St. Vincent de Paul Society to offer a “Know your utility rights” session at St. James Parish, Manville.
“We need to work together to do what we can to fill gaps in services, while we continue to organize for local solutions that can address the root causes of poverty,” George Wiley Center Executive Director Camilo Viveiros told Rhode Island Catholic.
He welcomed the “creative and caring ways” the St. Vincent de Paul Society volunteers brainstormed ways to help people through crises that are cutting social safety net.
Viveiros noted that CCHD is one of the few funders who value the importance of encouraging people directly struggling with economic injustice to act together and learn skills to organize to make a difference on issues.
“The George Wiley Center appreciates how CCHD expects organizing efforts to put the poor front and center,” he said. “Most people want to make a positive difference around issues but rarely are encouraged to have a say in policy decisions. The George Wiley Center shares the orientation that the poor must be treated with dignity, and that society needs to value the voices of the poor.”
Secretary for Catholic Charities and Social Ministry and Diocesan Director for CCHD James Jahnz underscored the importance of the success of the collection to the grassroots organizations that are working to help those that have been most impacted by unjust systems and structures.
“Through programs funded by CCHD, people learn to self-advocate, find their voices, and break the cycle of poverty that they may have been thrust into, but choose not to accept as their lot, while helping our low-income brothers and sisters have a say in their decisions to better their lives, empower them and build stronger families and stronger communities.”
Programs like Fuerza Laboral exemplify the belief that by empowering low-income individuals and families to stand up for themselves, they are creating more robust communities, Jahnz said.
He indicated that Fuerza Laboral has their “boots on the ground” to help workers that have been taken advantage of through wage theft, help to provide opportunities to acquire more skills, and help workers learn about higher paying career opportunities.
