Witness Talk: Peace & Justice Committee
October 6 & 7, 2007
Deb Gagnon
“Filling Up” with Service
Hello, my name is Deb Gagnon and I am here today to bear witness to a truism that I have discovered in life and that is that I can’t seem to give enough of myself away. The more I try to give, the more that seems to come back to me, filling me up with even more than I began. I guess it’s a bit like that other truism: ‘you have to have money to make money’, except that this has to do with something that money can’t buy: it has to do with a sense of well-being, of gratitude, of love of neighbor. So now I look for opportunities to ‘give myself away’.
When I joined this parish in January of this year, I indicated an interest in becoming involved in the Peace and Justice Committee. I was so grateful to so quickly receive an invitation to join this group. At first, I didn’t know what my place on this committee would be; I was a little nervous. Would I be worthy enough of the work of such a committee? I just took it all in at meetings, waiting for an opportunity – my opportunity – to get involved. That opportunity came when I learned about the Migrant Farm Worker Project in King Ferry. This project particularly intrigued me because I work at Wells College, which neighbors King Ferry, and I was vaguely aware that there were migrant farmworkers who came to pick the crops up there each year. Vaguely. In retrospect, how odd that I was only vaguely aware. It turns out that I had been driving past the workers’ encampment on Route 90 every day for the past 3 years without so much as noticing it. Here, just 5 miles from my place of work, a place of comfort and of privilege, and just 20 miles from my home in Ithaca, also a place of comfort and of privilege, lived people who came to our little part of the world to pick corn for us from one of the poorest countries in the world: Haiti.
Every year the Peace and Justice Committee organizes a food drive in our parish for the workers, so that they can have lunch items provided for one of the months that they are here; this year our month was July. I offered to transport the food items that were donated by our parishioners to King Ferry. This is where I first started ‘filling up’. When I arrived at St. Catherine’s to pick up the food from the donation box I was overwhelmed by the generosity of our parishioners – you all were so giving that it almost moved me to tears as I filled my car to the rafters (literally) with the donated food. I was so eager to deliver this to the little church in King Ferry that serves as headquarters for the project each year, to share with them the generosity of our parish. I’d like to personally thank you all for what you did: You helped feed the workers for a month – for which I know they were grateful – and you also helped feed me – ‘fill me up’ -- with your goodness.
We also, this year, organized a cookie drive so that we could greet the workers one of the days they came home from working in the fields with cookies, fruit, and lemonade. With others on the committee, I filled little baggies with cookies that you had lovingly made. Again, I was filled with gratitude at your generosity. So many scrumptious looking cookies! It was all I could do not to try them out for myself; you know: quality control. (-: I was also part of the St. Catherine’s entourage that went to deliver and distribute the cookies, fruit, and lemonade to the workers as they got off the bus that hot summer day. I really ‘filled up’ that day. Here were individuals who worked and lived under conditions most of us would not, could not tolerate or endure, yet they were so incredibly happy and cheerful. They sat and talked with us; they shared of themselves, their stories; they opened their homes to us. Again, I was almost moved to tears as I ‘filled up’. It was easy to see God in these people, in this place.
I decided to share the experience with my students at Wells, by asking them to participate in a service project at the Camp. It occurred to me that my students call this area home for a few months out of each year; so do these workers. Yet their lives couldn’t be more disparate and I know the students, at least, aren’t aware of their neighbors down the road. I managed to join the two groups so that they could mutually benefit from each other, and I couldn’t be happier with the results. The students just completed a month of English as a Second Language tutoring with the workers and submitted their reflections on this service opportunity to me just this week. Again, tears of joy. Again, ‘filling up’.
If you would like to share in the opportunities to ‘fill up’ that the Peace and Justice Committee provides, please join us. There will be members of the committee at each of the church entrances on your way out with clipboards. Stop to talk with them and provide your name so that we may contact you about our next meeting. And remember: the more you give, the fuller – in peace, love, and gratitude – you get.