Our Mission

Mission Statement

The Episcopal Farmworker Ministry responds to the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their families, and actively supports opportunities for them to become self-directive. We seek to minister to farmworkers in three principal ways:

• through direct services,
• through development and support of programs that work towards the empowerment of farmworkers and through encouraging leadership development, and
• through advocacy and education that aim toward systematic change at the local and state levels.

History

We started in 1982 with just one outreach worker who provided transportation to service agencies, translation, English classes, and recreational activities to mostly Haitian migrant workers. Later in our first decade, we added drivers’ education classes, a migrant summer youth camp, and our immigration services, begun in response to the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, that went on to obtain amnesty for many.

In the early 1990’s, we built a daycare facility that would become Saint Martin’s Migrant Head Start. Our migrant camp outreach, ESL, drivers’ education, and immigration work continued, but the client base had become mostly Latino. We began to offer assistance filing income taxes.

In 1996 we brought on board our first Sacramental Minister to develop a religious congregation of migrant workers.

In 1998 we opened our permanent facility, El Centro Episcopal, and it has allowed us to expand our programs and services even further. We added two full-time immigration specialists. Meanwhile, our religious congregation continued to grow, and in 2000 we began to hold worship services in the winter as well as the growing season.

Location

Sampson County has the highest farm cash income of all 100 North Carolina counties. Farming remains the primary occupation in Sampson County, and its population is predominantly rural. The land is flat to gently rolling. Rainfall and sunshine are plentiful.

The main crops grown in Sampson County are bell peppers, corn, cotton, cucumbers, soybeans, sweet potatoes, tobacco, and winter wheat, but there is substantial acerage used for barley, blueberries, cabbage, cantaloupes, eggplant, oats, peanuts, potatoes, rye, snap beans, squash, strawberries, tomatoes, and watermelons.

The different growing cycles of such a variety of crops and the labor-intensiveness of many of the crops leads to a large demand for farmworkers.

Sampson County is also a major producer of hogs and turkeys.

Episcopal Church

The Episcopal Church and the other churches in the worldwide Anglican Communion are committed to follow the example of our Lord Jesus Christ, who served the poor, the needy, and the outcast. The Episcopal Church is organized into dioceses, of which there are three in North Carolina. The Episcopal Farmworker Ministry is jointly sponsored by the Diocese of North Carolina and the Diocese of East Carolina.

If you would like to learn more about the Episcopal church, go to The Episcopal Church Welcomes You from the Episcopal Church USA or to What is the Episcopal Church? from Anglicans Online.