Reformed CCHD collection boosts groups putting Catholic social teaching into action

(OSV News) -- The Catholic Campaign for Human Development annual collection envelope -- for those church parishioners who don’t use the electronic alternative, #iGiveCatholicTogether -- announces that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' domestic anti-poverty program is "working on the margins."

Contributors, however, may not have a very concrete idea of just what that means, or what CCHD supports.

Founded in 1970 by the U.S. bishops, CCHD directly involves low-income Americans in creating job opportunities, improving their neighborhoods, and addressing the root causes of poverty where they live.

"The CCHD funding created an opportunity for our vision to become reality," Kristan Chamberlain, co-founder and CEO of KC Can Compost in Kansas City, Missouri, told OSV News.

Through a composting business and vocational instruction to work in green industry jobs, KC Can Compost provides job training to people struggling to overcome barriers to employment.

"We're both a social and an environmental venture -- very much 'Laudato Si'' based," Chamberlain said. "We actually quote Pope Francis' encyclical as part of our mission statement."

Men and women -- formerly homeless -- collect and compost food scraps and other food waste, diverting these from the landfill. Rotting food in landfills creates methane, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture notes is a greenhouse gas 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.

As KC Can Compost's website proudly declares, "Composting with KC Can Compost means you're enabling living wage jobs in a safe, therapeutic, and supportive work environment."

"We've educated 244 men and women struggling with barriers to employment for work in the green economy," Chamberlain reported.

"Hopefully, when giving to a fund like this, people can see the exponential impact," added Chamberlain.”They give a small donation -- but that's multiplied, and has tremendous impact across the country for disadvantaged people and for improving the environment."

This year the CCHD collection takes place the weekend of Nov. 17 -- coinciding with the annual World Day of the Poor -- although Catholics can also go online and give to the collection any time at usccb.igivecatholictogether.org.

Bishop Timothy C. Senior of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, chairman of the USCCB's Subcommittee on the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, echoed Chamberlain's observation.

"When you give to CCHD, you uphold the dignity of the poor by creating a path to good jobs and better, stronger communities," Bishop Senior said in an Oct. 25 press release.

"CCHD opens the door to the active participation of those experiencing poverty to convene, identify barriers, research issues, brainstorm solutions, and take action to change problematic structures and systems in their communities and is an essential part of the social mission of the Church in the United States," he added.

At the USCCB's annual fall plenary assembly in Baltimore. Bishop Senior announced that as of Nov. 9 -- after a thorough application and approval process to ensure conformity with church teaching -- the CCHD had approved 93 grants totaling "nearly 2.3 million dollars" to be distributed to community and economic development organizations around the country.

Additional funds of $277,000 were approved as internal USCCB grants to support the conference's efforts to educate Catholics on the root causes of poverty, and to assist the USCCB's work combatting racism.

CCHD's grant-giving activity was temporarily suspended earlier this year when the program ran into financial difficulties, resulting in the layoffs of several employees after a reorganization of the conference.

In 2023, CCHD awarded more than $12.7 million to nonpartisan grassroots organizations that assist marginalized people with the challenges of earning a living wage, finding affordable housing, and making their communities safe.

Seeking a local impact for a national collection, 25% of all contributions remain in the diocese where they were given to fund area anti-poverty projects.

Grant applications are reviewed by local bishops and the USCCB's CCHD subcommittee. Bishop Senior explained in the Oct. 25 news release that funded organizations "commit to advancing and uplifting Catholic moral and social teaching" and once approved, CCHD staff stay in close touch with recipients for the life of the grant.

"When Matt Cato from the Portland Archdiocese came to visit our outreach distributing commuter bicycles to parolees and unhoused neighbors, the haphazard church basement shop we were working in was flooding from winter rains," said Kirk Seyfert, executive director of The Northwest Hub in Salem, Oregon. "Nevertheless, even in this humble state, the possibility of what we were doing was enough to receive a small grant."

The Hub teaches bicycle repair and basic business skills to people experiencing homelessness, many of them recently released from local prisons, rehabilitation centers or mental health facilities.

Access to a bicycle can help to solve issues of affordable and reliable transportation. In 2023, 608 bike commuter packages were distributed by The Hub, and $39,863 free and reduced cost in-shop services were offered to bicyclists. The organization says its recycling initiative with the county keeps 50,000 pounds of bicycle-related waste from entering landfills annually.

Seyfert credits CCHD support -- both locally and nationally -- with guiding the organization's board-building and expansion endeavors; neighbors experiencing extreme poverty were offered both board and staff leadership positions.

"For four years we received guidance and wise counsel to ensure we scaled and grew to serve new communities farther afield, now including farmworkers and refugees, all the while managing to do so sustainably and in fidelity to the mission they shared wholeheartedly," Seyfert explained. "More than a decade later, the thousands of people we have served -- and those who presently receive our support -- are a direct result of local and national CCHD leadership deeply investing in helping us help others."

CCHD support also is helping to develop organizations based out of Catholic parishes, like Strangers No Longer in Detroit.

"It was that initial grant from CCHD that got us to where we could expand; we could really do work in parishes and high schools," said Bill O'Brien, the group's executive director.

Strangers No Longer plants its outreach efforts in several Michigan dioceses -- through 23 parishes and 11 high schools -- providing basic assistance and encouragement to immigrants and refugees, while also advocating for both individual immigrants and immigration reform.

With the looming threat of mass deportations under the incoming Trump administration, "I would have to say there's a lot of fear -- but also a commitment to be resilient, and to build community," O'Brien said. "The mothers are afraid if they get deported, what happens to their children that are born here; if they own a car or if they own a trailer home, what happens to that?"

Nonetheless, Strangers No Longer continues to expand its work.

"Right now, we're starting to do outreach to dairy farm workers," O'Brien said. "We got a grant to do that outreach to farm workers only because we were out in the Gaylord and Saginaw dioceses, thanks to the CCHD grant. So it has a multiplying effect."