Hunger Staffer Tours Navajo Lands
Episcopal News Service. August 9, 1976 [76268]
COAL MINE, Ariz. -- Fried bread and lamb stew may not seem such a terrible meal to many. But if it is all you have -- and the lamb is closer to mutton in age and quality -- the net effect is hunger. That is what the Rev. Charles Cesaretti, hunger staff officer for the Episcopal Church Center in New York found in this village and around much of the Navajo reservation on a recent tour of the Southwest.
Coal Mine used to be just what the name implies, a company town for a strip mining operation. When the mining was over and the land laid bare, the company moved on, taking even the town's store and many vital services with it and leaving a population of Navajos with few ways to earn the necessities of life.
The village sits 17 miles down a dirt road and its only water supply sits at the other end of the road. Every day, trucks make the 34-mile round trip with large water drums to bring in the day's supply.
Coal Mine's situation is not unique on the West Virginia-sized reservation which is home for about 150,000 people, according to Fr. Cesaretti. In his first major tour since the office was filled in June, Fr. Cesaretti spent early August camping on the reservation, visiting Episcopal congregations, attending a Navajo convocation, and traveling around the reservation with Navajo leaders.
Water supplies are inadequate or far away from the population centers. The land will not support agriculture and many of the people subsist on their own herds of sheep.
In the past, Fr. Cesaretti might have come on the reservation with a full, elaborate program of food, money and education which would be imposed on the Navajos. Now he and the Church are committed to responding to the needs that the people themselves see. The purpose of his tour was to acquaint himself with the people of the reservation, listen as they tried to set goals and plans, and attempt to find ways that the Church could respond.
One such response is in Coal Mine where the acute need for a local water supply is being partially met by a grant from the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief that will be used for a well and pump station for the village.
Trips like this are a large part of Fr. Cesaretti's work. The Church's attack on hunger problems is being made through a network of local, diocesan and provincial task groups. His office supports and coordinates their work and helps the various agencies find the answers and resources that will fit their needs best.
Fr. Cesaretti is optimistic that the concept is working. The national Church's Hunger Committee -- composed of clergy and laity from the nine provinces -- met for the first time in June and, already, Fr. Cesaretti claims, the elements of the planned network are being formed throughout the Church's parishes and dioceses.