Ethel Parana and her husband chose to live in Santa Paula --- a quiet, small, family-oriented community of about 30,000 --- because "I want to know the people I go to church with," says Ethel. "Everybody is welcome at St. Sebastian. And it gives me a good feeling to know I am needed, that I do something productive."
This "retired" woman volunteers as a receptionist at the parish office, tutors in the parish school, and teaches religious education classes on Sundays. "Wherever there is a need, I'll help," she says. "Whatever happens, I'll attend. St. Sebastian Parish gives me a purpose in life."
Such generosity typifies St. Sebastian Church. "They are really a people of faith and good Catholics," says their pastor, Canons Regular of the Immaculate Conception Father Pasquale Vuoso. "They're very active in outreach. They're very generous and ready to give. They're great people. I'm really proud of their outreach. For such a small parish they do an awful lot."
The parish balances its outreach programs, which are many, with great love of the Eucharist and faith development. "It's a wonderful combination," says Father Vuoso. "They're faith filled people who understand that to have faith, to be a Christian, means to be concerned about your brother and sister. It's all connected."
St. Sebastian is a unique blend of long-established families of Hispanic descent, more recently-arrived migrant farm workers, young couples who home-school their children, and very active retired --- all working as one parish, one community.
Deacon Al Guilin, who works closely with the St. Vincent de Paul Society and its many projects, serves at both St. Sebastian and neighboring Our Lady of Guadalupe parishes, each of whom have a high percentage of parishioners working in the local agricultural industry.
"We had a freeze a month ago and that affected a lot of the workers," notes Guilin, himself an "ag" worker. "Santa Paula is still an agricultural town with lots of Hispanic people, and most of them work in the fields or in some related part of the ag process."
At the end of each Sunday Mass recently, there have been appeals for donations to the food bank, and parishioners signed up to join CROP Walk to fight hunger. Many have worked through Catholic Charities in Ventura, and participated in "Family to Family" (cooking meals for the homeless) and in detention ministry at the Todd Road, Ventura County facility.
The school children participate in parish outreach as well. Students recently collected a truckload of food over a week and a half to help farm workers without jobs. And with the slogan "Pocket Change for Social Change," they collected money to give to Food Share in Ventura.
Meanwhile, Tom and Rosie Lugo and their St. Vincent de Paul Society workers go to Food Share each week and gather fresh spinach, tomatoes, broccoli, apples and rice to give to families in need. About 400 are fed during food distribution each week at parish offices.
"The bulk of the food comes through Food Share," says Sal Aguayo, who started the outreach programs sponsored by the St. Vincent de Paul Society in 1989. "Tom [Lugo] goes down to the central warehouse with a couple of his friends and they are able to get this food, or get it at a reduced price, and some is donated by churches. We give money from the CROP Walk and we receive some of the returns to buy food."
The garage used to store food is actually where the pastor used to park his car (the car now sits outside). In the choir loft, very unobtrusively, is where the clothing for the needy hangs on racks built by Aguayo.
"It's a very generous parish," he says. "The generosity comes from people donating. When we start running out of money, the money comes in. About 40 percent of people coming in now were hurt by the freeze. We don't worry about it. When the need grows, the people give." |