Courtesy of DESK

Amistad Catholic Worker and Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen, or DESK, were awarded as Unsung Heroes of New Haven. 

The Morris and Irmgard Wessel Fund was established in 1993 by patients, colleagues and friends in honor of Dr. Morris Wessel’s MED ’43 retirement from pediatric care in New Haven — and to memorialize his wife, Irmgard Wessel, who was also deeply committed to the New Haven community. 

The Wessel Prize is inspired by the Wessel’s devotion to community and is given each year to an individual or organization that has taken a leadership role in extending service to New Haveners in need. This year, the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen and the Amistad Catholic Worker received $4,000 each. 

Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services also received a special $10,000 contribution after having lost much of their federal funding. 

For Mark Colville of Amistad Catholic Worker, receiving the award represents a relationship that his organization had with the Wessels. His wife, Luz Catarineau Colville, had met Irm Wessel in a women’s group that met once a week. 

“It’s more than just an award. It’s more like a relationship there that deserves some honor,” Colville said. 

Colville believes Amistad Catholic Worker won the award because of their backyard tiny homes project, Rosette Neighborhood Village Collective. He explained that over the summer, Mayor Justin Elicker ordered the electricity to be shut down in the backyard. 

“Now we have to run electricity to these places so that people can survive, and we have to do that in an unsafe way with extension cords,” Colville explained. “It’s costing us an arm and a leg for the operating costs. I think that was in large part the motivation behind awarding us this gift.”

In September, Elicker told the News that cutting off power is part of the standard procedure for dealing with illegal housing units in violation of state building codes.

“The city holds some liability, and we want to make sure that we’re treating every property owner fairly and the same. So, we responded like we do with every property owner, by turning off the power on the site,” Elicker told the News in September.

The project is facing $17,000 in court fees after appealing the mayor’s decision.

For Colville, his work reflects his Catholic faith and his commitment to hospitality.

“We believe that evangelization doesn’t begin with teaching or preaching or baptizing, it begins with hospitality. So we at Amistad try to practice hospitality as social action,” he said. 

Luz Catarineau Colville said running Amistad Catholic Worker is “exhausting work,” and she appreciates the support from the Wessels. 

Steve Werlin, executive director of DESK, expressed a similar sentiment.

“When small, grassroots organizations take on bold initiatives, there are never any guarantees for success,” Werlin wrote to the News. “The completion of the renovations to and re-opening of our Downtown Drop-in & Resource Center come at a time of unprecedented need, and so it is more important than ever to be able to provide such critical, life-saving services to (and with) our community.”

Werlin explained that DESK was founded in the 1980s by Downtown Cooperative Ministries — a consortium of churches, synagogues and mosques that were trying to address basic-needs issues — now called Interfaith Cooperative Ministries. 

Although they don’t have a religious affiliation, many of their supporters come from faith-based backgrounds. Werlin emphasized that serving many religious traditions is what is most important to him.

“Not only do I live within a religious tradition that I think is important, I live within a broader community. It’s more important that we are envisioning ourselves as part of a broader community and not necessarily limited by one religious tradition,” said Werlin.

Irmgard and Morris Wessel died in 2014 and 2016, respectively.