Bishop Young House
Diocesan Press Service. December 6, 1963 [XVI-11]
A. Rees Hay, Chairman, Cuban Refugee Work, Fourth Province
The Episcopal Church is involved in a unique experiment - one designed to help Cuban refugee students take advantage of the educational opportunities in this country. Coming, as they do, from another culture, and speaking another language, they need our help. The Episcopal Church has found it important to establish a special program on the campus of Stetson University, Deland, Fla., to assist these students in making an adjustment to our academic life. The Church and the University have joined hands in attempting to build a bridge for 16 Cuban refugee students, a bridge that will carry them through the difficult time of adjustment.
Living together in a house on campus, leased by the Church, these 16 Cuban refugee students receive the special attention of both faculty and fellow students. After one year, the Cuban students will be ready to be placed in colleges across the country concerned to take their part in providing educational opportunities for these young refugees.
A formal statement of purpose prepared by those responsible for the Stetson program puts it this way: "It is not the concern of the Church to offer these Cuban students an education just to enable them to graduate from college and secure a substantial job. It is the hope that together, we may catch a vision of a better society in which men and women may grow in human dignity in one world under the authority of God rather than under the tyranny and greed of man."
Gaston is one of the students. Intelligent, keenly responsive, sensitive to the wonderful opportunity the Church offers, this boy already is the most effective missionary we have. His parents in Cuba, as well as his many relatives and friends, all know what the Episcopal Church is doing and, as Gaston says, "The Episcopal Church is more important to Cuban people still in Cuba than it has ever been before. When we go back, we will have many more Episcopalians than before Castro. " Or as a Roman Catholic student being sponsored by the Episcopal Church said, "Yes, I am a Roman Catholic, but the Episcopal Church has taught me to be a Christian."
Your gifts to the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief, marked Cuban Work, go to make possible this educational program with the Cuban students. It is part of the total effort to meet the many needs of these people who have turned to us in their most tragic hour. The student work speaks directly to the future. From where will the future leadership of free Cuba come? From the free world or from the Communist world? The choice rests with us.