VANCOUVER—It was probably foreigners working to support their families who picked the locally grown vegetables on your dinner table, said the director of migrant ministry in the archdiocese.

“They are here because we need them as workers to pick our fruit, to pick our flowers,” said Evelyn Vollet, head of the Service and Justice Office. “There is nobody standing waiting to do this. We need them to be here.”

Migrant ministry aims to meet the workers’ spiritual and physical needs during the months they farm here. It’s a challenging ministry to lead, with irregular harvest schedules, language barriers, and transportation hurdles.

“It’s not an easy ministry to get started. You can’t start it and ask them to come. You have to find them. You have to find ways” to transport them, Vollet said.

Her office provides a how-to handbook and information sessions to make the outreach more manageable.

Connie Fabian, who has been reaching out to farm workers through Our Lady of Sorrows Parish since 2010, contributed to the handbook.

“It’s for people who are already working in the ministry and for people who are just forming their group,” she explained.

She and several volunteers produced the guide last May. It outlines ways to coordinate events, transportation, and fundraisers as well as how to behave during farm visits and how to screen volunteers in accordance with the Safe Environment Policy of the archdiocese.

It also handles tricky issues such as what to do if a seasonal worker asks for help in filling out a citizenship application.

“We hope very much that every parish with farm workers will come on board” with this ministry, Vollet said. So far, eight parishes offer the sacraments to farm workers.

Sacred Heart Parish in Delta will officially launch its farm worker program March 7.

Parishioner Rosario Musso said the outreach started in 2013 when two farm workers asked her to help prepare them for their first Communion. Now the parish welcomes 150-160 workers for a monthly Spanish Mass and free meal, with the opportunity for confession.

Before the launch, Sacred Heart will host an information session on how the program works Feb. 16.

“We want to not just take care of them regarding Mass and the other sacraments, but we really want to see what else we can do for them,” Vollet said.

“This is a beautiful way of sharing your gifts and being able to go on mission.”

The handbook is available at www.rcav.org/hispanic-ministry-post.