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Archbishop of Canterbury visits Santa Ana preschoolers
By Pat McCaughan, Episcopal News Service
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Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams took time out from a hectic 76th General Convention schedule July 8 to rub elbows with inner city Santa Ana preschoolers at the Episcopal Church of the Messiah’s Hands Together program—literally.

During a tour of the school, located on Civic Center Drive East, Williams visited with a table of one- and two-year-old preschoolers who were “coloring” and who had as much cinnamon-hued paint on their faces as their artwork.

Bishop Assistant Sergio Carranza accompanied Archbishop Williams to the preschool, representing Bishop Diocesan J. Jon Bruno.

Lambeth Palace staffer Tim Livesey said Wednesday’s visit wasn’t unusual, that when traveling the archbishop enjoys making “direct contact with local churches” and experiencing ministries up close. Accompanying him on the visit was the Rev. Canon Joanna Udal, secretary for Anglican Communion Affairs.

Santa Ana is eight miles south of, but worlds away from, the Anaheim Convention Center where General Convention officially got underway Wednesday. In 2004, the city, with a predominantly poor Latino population, was rated America’s number one urban hardship city by the State University of New York’s Nelson Rockefeller Institute of Government.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams took time out from a hectic 76th General Convention schedule July 8 to rub elbows with inner city Santa Ana preschoolers at the Episcopal Church of the Messiah’s Hands Together program—literally.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams took time out from a hectic 76th General Convention schedule July 8 to rub elbows with inner city Santa Ana preschoolers at the Episcopal Church of the Messiah’s Hands Together program—literally.

But Hands Together supporters like Glenn A. Howard, a Messiah parishioner who helped found the center in 2000, say they are making a difference.

“We take kids from the poorest area in Orange County, California. Without us, they would be at the bottom of the class. But when our kids leave here, they are at the top percentile. It took a long time to generate confidence of the parents, who weren’t used to letting someone else take care of their kids,” he said.

In another classroom, Williams talked “ca mping” with children who were enjoying the outdoor experience vicariously—by making paper cutouts of picnic-style food.

To heighten the ambience, the preschoolers could crawl in and out of an inflated orange-and grey tent pitched in a corner of the room, nap on sleeping bags, and take a closer look at a Styrofoam cooler, faux-kerosene lantern and other camping utensils, explained director Ceciley Vallejo, who led the tour.

“Hands Together opened Valentine’s Day 2000 and serves nearly 100 infants to pre-kindergarteners,” said the Rev. Carolyn Estrada, associate rector at Messiah.

The program’s mission is to provide the highest quality early education and care to families of the working poor who are trying to gain stability, improve their lives and leave poverty behind, she added.

Accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, Hands Together was selected by the Children and Families Commission of California as an exemplary childcare program. It has also received national recognition by the Department of Housing and Urban Development for being one of the most outstanding empowerment zones in the nation.

Blanca Rodriguez has taught at the school five years and said the program has a flexible structure to help enable parents to both work and further their education. “We just had a graduation here,” Rodriguez said, “and a lot of the parents were also graduating from educational programs at the same time as their kids. It’s a great program.”

Hands Together also offers monthly parental training classes, Vallejo told the guests. She said about 75 percent of the center’s students are designated as low-income.

Modeled after the Waldorf School philosophy, the program also offers a part-time, drop-in program three mornings a week for homeless parents with preschool children. Hands Together began as a ministry of the Church of Messiah, but is now a separate 501c3 nonprofit with a $1.7 million budget, 75 percent of which is funded by the California Department of Education. The remainder comes from grants and donations.

The Church of the Messiah congregation was founded in 1883 and the church was built five years later, amongst California wildflowers. Listed on the national historic register, it is the both the oldest public building in continuous use and the oldest church building in continuous use in Orange County.

Focusing on literacy training, Hands Together has educated more than 500 children in Santa Ana, where fewer than 40 percent of students graduate from high school. It has graduated 238 students in its nine-year history.

Under the skillful attention of teacher Karina Chavez feeding fish became an object lesson in color identification for a handful of young students. Chavez’s question about how fish differ from humans unleashed a flurry of responses.

“They don’t have hair like we do.”

“They’re sleeping.”

The whole spectrum of colors rang out in response to her next questions: “what are the differences between a beta and a goldfish? What colors are they?”

Williams’ visit ended with a tour of the church, which features a sanctuary lamp acquired from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem; a 1903 Moeller Organ, which is believed to be the oldest in Orange County; beautiful stained glass work (including at least two Tiffany windows in the Apse; and the stone baptismal font, which was donated by the Irvine family). Beautiful iconographic carved decorative wood panels along the base of the chancel arch symbolically depict the four Apostles and make reference to Christ’s words: “I am the Alpha and the Omega”.

The church has about 800 members with an average Sunday attendance of 250 at three services, including two English and one Spanish language services, and hosts many bilingual activities, Estrada said. She said the rector, the Rev. Brad Karelius, was away on a medical leave.

“The church was built in 1888. I know that’s not old to you, but it is for us,” she told Williams.

He smiled.

 © 2009, The Episcopal News Service - Used with permission