May 18, 2016

By Father Jay Seymour
Episcopal vicar for pastoral personnel

I had the privilege of taking a post-Easter trip this past April to Quito, Ecuador accompanied by Fathers Don Manfred and Andy Amyot.  For some years now, Sister Cindy Sullivan, a native of Massena, has urged Father Manfred to visit her at The Working Boys’ Center (WBC) in Quito.  Father Don, who will be leaving Massena after 14 years as pastor of The Church of Sacred Heart and St. Lawrence, decided this would be a good time to take her up on the offer.  He asked Father Amyot, who speaks Spanish, to join him and I invited myself to tag along. 

Sister Cindy has been working in Quito since 1974 starting as a volunteer dental hygienist. Inspired by the people and the work being done at the Center, she decided to join the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Over 40 years later, she remains there still.

Working Boys Center
The history of the Working Boys’ Center is worth relating.  In 1964 the local Jesuit Superior in Ecuador instructed Jesuit Father John Halligan, to do a study on street children with the hope of alleviating some of the horrible consequences of poverty affecting them.  Father Halligan chose to target shoeshine boys who were working in the streets.

It is important to note that these were boys not involved in delinquency but boys who were working in order to earn money to help their families.  Father Halligan started in the attic of a Jesuit High School with numbers eventually reaching to over 200 boys, 30 of whom lived at the Center in clean but very cramped conditions.
A couple years after starting he was joined by Sister Mary Miguel Conway, a Sister of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who served as co-director.  Together they gave the boys a family atmosphere with tenderness and discipline providing meals, showers, and medical and dental care along with technical education in carpentry and shoe making.  As a way of teaching responsibility and as part of their life-skill training there was also obligatory money saving.

In 1968 a grammar school was established and in 1974, as the work progressed and flourished, the Center moved to a downtown location in Quito. 

In 1981, with the help of USAID, a second Center was established on the outskirts of the city. Both Centers are served by a committed and dedicated staff, some of whom were former students, and including young volunteers from the US and around the world. 

Since its inception, the training at WBC has expanded to include entire families and going well beyond carpentry to include mechanics, welding, baking, cosmetology, sewing, candle, chocolate and toy-making.  Several businesses contract for their products but they also have small business training operations on site including a bakery, restaurant and beauty salon.

All 400 families served by the center are actively involved with adult education and training that includes faith formation and daily Mass for the students along with practical aspects of budgeting and saving for the parents.
Christian values of caring for one’s neighbor are promoted as well.  For example, on Sundays, perhaps in taking a lesson from the Amish of our area, the families form “mengas” or “work gangs” to build and improve their neighbors’ homes.

It is hard to learn if you are hungry.  Towards that end, The Working Boys’ Center provides some 2,000 meals a day for these children and their families beginning with a 6 am breakfast and including snacks in the afternoon.  Still, this is not about hand-outs but rather about giving a hand so that these families can learn life skills, find meaningful work and stand on their own with dignity.

It was pointed out that those boys who make it through the welding program have 100% placement in jobs and many others who would have no chance of improving their lives now have the skills that give them hope of a better life.

The center is attacking poverty through empowerment and with great success.  In fact, the WBC has been named the best technical school in the country.

Support the center
Over the course of our brief stay in Ecuador, we had a chance to visit some of the homes of the families involved with the center.  Viewing some of the living conditions had a powerful effect on us Americans who take so much for granted.  If it did not bring one to tears, it at least left me and others angry at the injustice of inequality motivating us to want to do something about it.

Supporting the center seemed like a no-brainer.  At one of our last meals before our departure I asked Sister Cindy of one thing that was a priority need at the center. She spoke of the need for a mini-bus to transport small groups from place to place.  The Center’s current mini-bus is not road worthy leaving our small group and
other small groups from the school to be carted around in a large, old, gas-guzzling city bus owned by the Center. 

Discussing it afterwards, Fathers Manfred, Amyot and I decided we would try to do something about getting Sister Cindy that mini-bus.

Father Manfred has generously agreed to offer his farewell from Massena as a kick-off fundraiser.  Rather than have people present him with a material gift or a gift of money, he is asking to use his farewell dinner at the K of C on June 3 to raise money for Sister Cindy’s bus. 

Soon after returning home from our trip I shared some of my experiences with my brother priests. Father Jim Shurtleff, who is retiring in June from Notre Dame in Ogdensburg, also decided to jump on board using his farewell from the parish for this purpose.

Just three days after leaving Ecuador, a devastating earthquake struck the country.  The most affected areas were along the coast and although it was felt in the mountainous area of Quito, the damage there was minimal.  Still, the need of so many families to build and re-build their lives and to do so with dignity highlights more than ever the important work being done at The Working Boys’ Center.

You readers of the North Country Catholic can help with this on-going work of our universal church.  If you would like to support this effort and make a difference, you can send a donation or check made out to K of C Council 1141, PO Box 46, Massena, NY  13662 or to Knights of Columbus Council 258, 721 Hasbrouck Street, Ogdensburg, N.Y.  13669. Please include a notation that it is for the WBC in appreciation of the work being done there as well as in gratitude for Fathers Manfred and Shurtleff and their  years of service as priests.

If interested, you can find more information on the Center by just going on-line and typing “Working Boys Center, Quito.”   There is great information there including some wonderful You Tube clips.  The WBC consider themselves to be “A Family of Families.”  By supporting them, you can be a part of that “Family” too.

PHOTO SUPPLIED
Father Donald  J. Manfred, pastor of the Church of Sacred Heart and St. Lawrence in  Massena, made a new friend during his post-Easter visit to Quito, Ecuador with Fathers Andrew J. Amyot and James W. Seymour. They visited Sister Cindy Sullivan, a Massena native who has ministered at the Working Boys Center in Quito for more the 40 years. At the end of their trip, the priests decided to assist the center with the purchase of a mini-van. Father Manfred, who is being transferred from Massena in June, has requested that any farewell gifts be donated to the cause.