Redlands Christian Migrant Association
Barbara Mainster, Executive Director
Olga Hernandez, Deputy Director
Leslie Moguil, Special Projects Coordinator
402 W. Main St.
Immokalee, Fla. 34142
(941) 658-3560
(941) 658-3571 fax

More than 30 years ago, a small group of Mennonites, moved by Christian charity, had a compassionate idea: Using volunteers, they would open safe places in the Homestead area -- a child-care center at the Redlands and South Dade Labor Camps -- where migrant farm workers could leave their children while the adults worked in the fields.

This seemingly good idea didn't work out very well, however. Despite their good intentions, the Mennonites were able to persuade only a handful of migrants to take advantage of their services. Uncertain what they were doing wrong, the group approached Wendell N. Rollason, a well-known advocate for farm workers in the region, and he quickly identified the problem: The program, though good-hearted, failed to take into account the simple reality that these middle-class white Protestant Anglos had neither culture nor language in common with the people they wanted to serve.

"The telling reason," Rollason wrote in a recent organizational report, "[was] the deep family reluctance to leave their children with strangers. They saw their children as being safer with them in the fields. Our challenge was to change this. Fields and groves were and are dangerous places."

Rollason's solution was a simple stroke of genius, one that remains a core principle of RCMA to this day: The organization would seek migrant mothers to work on its staff, bringing their knowledge of the language and culture -- and their experience of LIVING with poverty -- to the program, where they would work in teams and on an equal basis with the group's trained professionals.

This simple notion turned RCMA around, and 30 years after it was chartered in 1965, RCMA has grown into a major influence in the quality of life of Florida's farm workers, both migrants and rural poor, serving more than 5,000 individuals from field offices in 17 Florida counties with a staff of some 1,200 (more than 85 percent of them former farm workers) and a budget approaching $22 million a year. Much of RCMA's funding comes from Head Start and USDA nutrition programs, but it also looks to foundations, funding agencies, United Way and individual donors inspired by fund-raising projects.

A non-profit, non-sectarian organization, its primary mission is to provide child development and Head Start services to farmworker families and other rural low-income families. Its core values are, as stated, to involve farmworkers in its staff, with every post up to and including Executive Director filled by a team involving both a former farm worker and a "degreed" professional working as partners and equals; and to ensure that not only children but their parents and families are served by its educational programs. I visited the organization's management center in Immokalee, Florida, a pine-woods town on the edge of the Everglades that swells from 15,000 to an ill-housed 35,000 inhabitants during the winter tomato, squash and pepper harvest season. One of the brighter spots on the village's dusty and weatherbeaten landscape is the bright coral-and-sand stucco complex (once a Baptist church and school) that houses RCMA's offices and child development centers. The centers -- six separate units serving various ages from infants to preschoolers, typically in groups of 20 served by a team of two leaders plus Foster Grandparent volunteers -- were uniformly abuzz with swirling, colorful, noisy activity, music and dancing and art and lots of chatter in several languages, surprisingly well-organized beneath the boisterous surface, and clearly focused on learning and nutrition, respecting the youngsters' diverse cultures while at the same time nudging them toward fluency in English. Outreach workers spend their days getting parents involved, as volunteer workers and program helpers but also giving them the tools they'll need to be effective advocates for their youngsters when they move on to the public schools. Redlands Christian Migrant Association (continued)

In addition to the on-site child-care programs, RCMA also provides training, support and USDA nutrition assistance for a network of family day-care centers, all headed by former farm workers who've moved into family day care as a source of income and a needed service for the community; although these networks aren't operating in all 17 counties, they're expanding quickly in several locations, with 40 to 45 families now operating family centers in Collier County (Immokalee) alone.

A third program component, called AIM (Active Intelligent Minds Achieve More), targets older youngsters identified as being "at risk" of dropping out of school, and -- with RCMA staff working in partnership with the schools -- works with the youngsters and their families to focus attention on their problems and keeping them in school. Another partnership with the schools provides English literacy classes for adults at the RCMA sites; and a partnership with the community Housing Authority seeks to ensure decent low-cost housing for as many of the migrant families as possible during the season.

This is a remarkable program with a long and effective track record and a team-management concept that involves community members as respected fellow workers and role models. It's apparently unique, but it works so well that it surely should be replicated. "It's a '60s kind of model," Barbara Mainster said with only a half-joking grimace. "Maybe we're past our time." I'd hate to believe that.

Although the organization hasn't done extensive, rigorous testing, success stories about its past graduates abound. Just this past summer, RCMA folks were overjoyed to see newspaper stories about John Velazquez, a handsome young man who 14 years ago was a 4-year-old student in Susan Vega's Migrant Head Start program. This spring, John was named valedictorian at South Lake High School -- and shortly after doffing his cap and gown, he headed west on a full scholarship to the United States Air Force Academy.

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.

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