Farmworker mission to widen fund drive

The mission, which serves migrant farm families, wants to expand services, so it is appealing throughout the bay area.

By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 21, 2003

WIMAUMA -- For the first time in its 27 years serving farmworker families, the Beth-El Mission is getting aggressive in the hunt for donations.

To expand its services and cover rising operational costs for the programs already offered, the Presbyterian mission is embarking on an ambitious multicounty campaign to raise at least $500,000 in private donations over the next five years.

It marks a sharp departure from the nonprofit mission's longstanding practice of relying on the Presbyterian church and grants to keep going. Beth-El leaders say they can't grow unless they go beyond the church for support, given the shaky economy and its affect on church finances nationwide.

"We've always just relied on what came in," said executive director Evan Jorn. "Certainly, we never asked for multiyear pledges. But we need to go outside the church if we want to take ourselves to the next level."

The "next level" is sure to involve 10 untouched acres on the mission's 27-acre spread off U.S. 301. Jorn and others envision developing it, possibly as a site for farmworker housing.

But such an expansion will take money, and someone well-connected enough to get it from residents and organizations throughout Hillsborough, Manatee, Pinellas and Sarasota counties.

Enter Alex Sink, the former Bank of America executive whose husband, Bill McBride, lost the 2002 gubernatorial race.

Over the next year, Sink will travel from her Thonotosassa home to breakfasts across greater Tampa Bay, telling the story of the mission that touched her heart from her first visit five years ago as part of her church's outreach.

"We need to bring Beth-El to the people," said Sink, chairwoman of the mission's financial development committee.

"We have a good story to tell, and now we're finally telling it to broad audiences."

Breakfasts will be held over the next several months in Pinellas and Pasco counties, in downtown Tampa and in southern Sarasota County, said Sink, who also sits on the mission's board of directors.

Recent breakfasts in east Tampa and Bradenton, where farmworker children talked frankly about their transient childhoods and their dreams for adulthood, netted $85,000 in pledges for the next five years.

"That shows you there's a lot of interest now in the status of migrant workers," Sink said. "And I think when you go to a church like Palma Ceia (Presbyterian), which has a lot of resources and wealth, you have a responsibility to reach out to these missions."

Sink's church, Palma Ceia Presbyterian, joined with Sink and McBride to donate more than $250,000 toward the mission's day care and charter school.

"Now we have these big dreams," Sink said. "And with these dreams come the need for more operating dollars that are committed over a longer period of time."

Beth-El was founded in 1976 by a group of Cumberland Presbyterians who rented a small house in Ruskin, where they held Spanish-language church services for migrant farmworkers.

In 1989, the mission moved to its 27-acre spread off U.S. 301, about 20 miles south of Tampa. Today, it serves the rural farmworker populations of Hillsborough, Manatee and Sarasota counties.

Beth-El has always gotten the bulk of its funding from its governing bodies: the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and the Tampa Bay and Peace River Presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

They provide the mission about $200,000 a year, which covers the operating expenses of core programs such as Sunday school, Bible study, Christmas toys and the weekly food pantry, Jorn said. Those programs serve more than 2,000 families a year.

In recent years, the Presybterian church has maintained but not increased the money it gives to Beth-El. Sink doesn't expect to see an increase in the next few years, either, given the state of church finances nationwide.

Last year, the Presbyterian Church trimmed its workforce as part of a $4-million cutback, according to a Feb. 22 article in Christian Century. The church expects to make another $5-million in cuts through 2004.

Similar cuts are being made by the United Methodist Church and the Lutheran Church, all suffering under the shaky economy.

To pay for additional services, like the adult education and the 120-student charter school added in recent years, Beth-El leaders have turned to government dollars, private foundations, and non-profit agencies.

But money from those groups typically doesn't cover all the operating costs, Jorn said.

For example, the housing assistance office at Beth-El operates under a $60,000 community development block grant and a $60,000 grant from the Children's Board. The money covers the salaries of three case managers, but not the administrative expenses of applying for the grant each year, and of keeping required records on how the grants are spent, Jorn said.

The Sleeping Porch, a 1,400-square-foot haven where farmworkers can leave sick family members for the day, is being built with a $203,000 grant from the Presbyterian Women of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

That money will only cover construction and one year's operating costs, Jorn said. After that, Beth-El will look to its five-year money-raising campaign to keep the Porch running.

These services join a long list of others provided at Beth-El: health screening, legal advice, parenting education that emphasizes the father's role. Many of these programs are run by outside groups, but because they're located at the mission, Beth-El recently hired an operations manager to oversee them all.

Meanwhile, mission leaders are envisioning yet another expansion.

On the mission's last 10 empty acres, Jorn envisions free housing for single farmworker men who come here for the picking season. In the off season, the rooms could be used to house missionary groups that come for the summer to work in the area, Jorn says.

Farmworker children could be cared for in the rooms during the start and finish of the school year, when their parents are still out of state for harvest work.

Mission leaders are even entertaining the possibility of developing a quarter-mile tract along U.S. 301 that's zoned for commercial use. The mission could lease it to a convenience store, generating monthly income and providing jobs to local families.

Or it could open its own business and give all profits back to mission programs, Jorn said.

"This isn't something we've decided on," Jorn said. "But you have to start talking for these ideas to gel. We talked for years about that day care before we actually built one. There's always more we can do."

To help

The Beth-El Mission is at 18240 U.S. 301 S in Wimauma. The mailing address is P.O. Box 860, Wimauma, FL 33598. To volunteer or donate, call 633-1548. Or visit www.beth-el.info/Default.htm.