We Don’t Ask: Are You Catholic or Not? We Ask: Are You Hungry?
About this episode
J. Antonio Fernández discusses his role at Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York and the challenges faced in food assistance and community service.
He never wanted to be an administrator. He wanted to be a therapist, and to work in a food pantry. Instead, J. Antonio Fernández has a job that no layman had held in more than a century. He leads Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York. Not one organization, but 82 of them, 9,000 employees, more than 400,000 people served a year. And he still turns up at the food distributions most weeks. Ask him what people get wrong about the work, and he doesn’t hesitate. We talk about the federal money that has disappeared, about being a landlord in a city debating rent freezes, and about the one thing he is certain no technology will ever replace. It’s J. Antonio Fernandez on The Business of Giving.
People in this episode
Host: The Business of Giving
Guest: J. Antonio Fernández
Topics covered
- food assistance
- nonprofit leadership
- community service
- federal funding
- social work
Keywords
- Catholic Charities
- food pantry
- federal funding
- New York
- community service
- nonprofit
- social work
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York
Places: New York
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