At least one group on Martha’s Vineyard rallied to help the 50 migrants who arrived on the island over two nights – less than 48 hours it is said – last week. The unexpected visitors spent two nights sheltered in the rectory of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Edgartown, Massachusetts, and cared for by its members. “There were people who needed help, and the mission of our church is to help people in need, to do what Christians are supposed to do,” church warden Barbara Rush told Fox News Digital. MARTHA VINEYARD RESIDENT SAYS IMMIGRANTS WILL ‘HAPPEN’ AND GET MORE SERVICES FROM ‘DOWN SOUTH’ When the migrants arrived, authorities called the Rev. Father Chip Seadale — but he was off the island, Rush said. So he took action to rally support for the immigrants from church members and others in the community, he said. St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Edgartown, Massachusetts on Martha’s Vineyard welcomed 50 immigrants into its care when those people arrived on the island on September 14, 2022. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital) “They [the authorities] asked if the church could take in some of the immigrants,” parish musician Charles Russ told Fox New Digital. “Fr Seadale replied, ‘No — we can accept all immigrants.’
The 50 migrants spent two nights on the island before state authorities bused them to Joint Base Otis on Cape Cod, on the Massachusetts mainland. “There were people who needed help, and the mission of our church is to help people in need, to do what Christians are supposed to do.” Rush said Martha’s Vineyard is not equipped to provide long-term care for the migrants who were brought from Florida to the island a week ago. MARTHAS VINEYARD MERCHANT SAYS THERE IS A ‘PROCESS’ TO COME TO AMERICA, ‘FOLLOW IT’ “It was not for lack of desire to help, but for lack of natural space on the island itself,” he said. The island’s only homeless shelter, he noted, only operates in the winter. It only has room for five to 10 people. A migrant, left, heads forward on Martha’s Vineyard. On the right, the exterior of the church of Agios Andreas is depicted. “I can do what God is calling me to do as a rector of a church,” Fr Seadele said. (Left image: Matias J. Ocner/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images; right image: Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital) “I think everything happened so quickly, I don’t think long-term plans were even discussed,” Russ said. Father Seadale told Fox News Digital in a telephone interview Tuesday that he was away at a conference in North Carolina while the migrants were on Martha’s Vineyard. However, he was moved by the community’s response. Calling it “an unbelievable miracle,” he said that “all parts of the community — we’re talking about the police, emergency, fire, the people who know how to make meals for our winter community dinners, the people who help staff our overnight winter shelter program — everyone came out and knew exactly what to do.” “It was not for lack of desire to help, but for lack of natural space on the island itself.” Fr Seadale also said that “at the heart of it all” was trying to ensure that whatever community members did, “remain accessible to real people who were really hurting and hurt in their lives”. This was, he said, to show immigrants “what a community based on care and love looks like.” Victorian gingerbread cottages in Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard. Fr Chip Seadale said the community aimed to “do the best with what we have” to help migrants. (Photo by John Greim/LightRocket via Getty Images) He said the community’s response would also “give them hope for the balance of their journeys – which, by the way, are far from over”. Fr Seadale defended Martha’s Vineyard against claims that the islanders were selfish. “Unless you actually live here, you don’t understand how things work,” he explained. RESIDENTS OF MARTHA’S VINE LAUM LACK OF RESOURCES, EVEN AS ISLAND IS BUILT WITH CASH AND BEDS “Everyone has a different way of doing things,” he said, pointing to economic, socioeconomic, governmental and private concerns. “Well, you know, we do the best we can with what we’ve got.” A man who was among a group of migrants arriving on Martha’s Vineyard flashes his thumbs Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2022, in Edgartown, Mass. (Ray Ewing/Vineyard Gazette via AP) Fr Seadale said he immediately realized that his church had the ability, temporarily, to house all the migrants — and, as rector, he had to do what he could. MARTHA’S VINEYARD RALLY EFFORT RELIEF FOR IMMIGRANTS BY SENDING THEM TO CAPE COD MILITARY BASE “I cannot fix immigration law in the United States of America,” he said. “I can not help [Gov.] Greg Abbott and [Gov.] Ron DeSantis with their issues in their respective states — knowing that they have issues that they’ve been dealing with for years now, at the border.” CLICK HERE TO RECEIVE THE LIFESTYLE NEWSLETTER He added, “But I can do what God calls me to do as the rector of a church and reach out and say, ‘You know what? I know you’re stuck on something bigger than you.” It was “kind of weird” to see his small congregation “become part of a national issue,” he said. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP In housing the migrants, Fr Seadale said the people of Martha’s Vineyard aimed to prevent them from “really getting involved in the machinery of these things and sometimes getting chewed up and spit out”. He said that would likely happen “unless others like me and [the community] come in and say, “You know what? We can do what we can.” Kerry J. Byrne is a lifestyle reporter with Fox News Digital.