Rodriguez

[ORLANDO] United Way Heart of Florida has named The Rev. José Rodriguez, vicar of Iglesia Episcopal Jesús de Nazaret, Orlando, among honorees for its 2019 Change Makers Impact Award. The awards, initiated in 2018, recognize “key players who make our community a better place to live,” according to United Way. Recipients were celebrated at a Sept. 17 reception and will be honored at a Oct. 10 awards banquet.

The award comes to Rodriguez for his advocacy for the Latino community “from the halls of Congress to the offices of local county commissioners and school board members,” he said. This advocacy “is deeply rooted in disaster preparedness and recovery work,” he added. 

Only months before Hurricanes Irma and Maria and the resultant influx of displaced Latinos, Rodriguez returned to Orlando to serve in the Azalea Park area where he grew up. “I was blessed with a wonderful team of church volunteers, our ‘abuelitas’ (‘dear grandmothers’) who supported me through every crazy and innovative idea,” he said. “… Together we worked alongside our wider diocesan family as we responded to Hurricane Maria and its aftermath. We welcomed displaced families into Central Florida through these recovery efforts, including advocacy work, hunger relief, education programs and helping close the gap on health disparities.” 

But the communal nature of this ministry extends far beyond Orlando, Rodriguez explained. “Together with substantial investment from Episcopal Relief & Development as well as churches as far away as Trinity Church Wall Street in New York City, we mounted a coordinated effort,” he said. “We have been able to leverage each other’s energies.” 

“I am very clear that this work did not occur in a vacuum, and it is the totality of our witness in these efforts and the goodwill of my fellow workers in the Lord’s vineyard that have blessed all of us with this honor,” Rodriguez said. “While the award bears my name, it has the fingerprints of many all over it.”