HM Legacy in Immokalee

The Immokalee volunteer house has had many inhabitants through the years. Each person has left his or her own particular legacies and legends behind. Most of the volunteers have since moved from Immokalee, but some parts of them always remain here. For example, the first Immokalee HM volunteer went on to start a non-profit organization that partners with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers here in town. A volunteer from several years ago now teaches English in the local technical school, and another teaches Science at the high school.

Our worksites all welcome us with open arms because of their memories of past HM volunteers. We always hear our co-workers’ favorite memories of former volunteers and they ask how they are doing now. It was honestly a little intimidating to try and fill the shoes of those before me because of all the praise and adoration placed on them and I hope that I, too, leave such a positive legacy.

There are 7 years of HM volunteer pictures on our refrigerator. Especially when we first got here, whenever a friend or co-worker mentioned someone who lived in the house before us, we would run to the kitchen and try to get everyone straight.

Of course, meeting a person really helps aid the process of figuring out who lived here before. We have had several visitors already this year who are former HM volunteers. One former volunteer even brought his entire youth group for a week-long immersion trip that we hosted for them. I think that wanting to return to Immokalee shows just how much a year (or more) here impacts individuals.

Whether it be a room shared by a lineage of inhabitants, a bike passed on through the years, or a story that is told again and again, I feel proud to be, what the community calls, a “voluntaria Catolica (Catholic volunteer.)”

In solidarity,

Julie