{"id":237968,"date":"2015-09-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-04T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/the-man-behind-the-cloth\/"},"modified":"2015-09-04T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-09-04T07:00:00","slug":"the-man-behind-the-cloth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/the-man-behind-the-cloth\/","title":{"rendered":"The man behind the cloth"},"content":{"rendered":"

A conversation with the new \u201cFather Joe\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Por Margie M. Palmer<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been about five months since Jimmy Vargas, better known as Deacon Jim, stepped into the role of president and CEO of Father Joe\u2019s Villages, and while much has been written about his professional background, some of the backstory of what makes him tick has been more elusive. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Deacon<\/a>
Deacon Jim Vargas (Courtesy FJV)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The native New Yorker, who, coincidentally, grew up in the same Bronx neighborhood as his successor, said he was amused to learn he and Father Joe Carroll came from similar roots. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was visiting him in the hospital and we got to chatting, and we realized we both grew up in the South Bronx; I grew up at a home on 138th Street and Willis Avenue and he lived at 141st Street and Willis Avenue,\u201d Vargas said. \u201cWe also learned he was baptized in the same church my wife was baptized in; it was a pretty interesting thing to learn.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Vargas said he was drawn to the seminary early on in life, and at one point, considered joining the priesthood. It wasn\u2019t until he met his wife that he learned that the priesthood was \u201cnot what God had in his plan for me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe married when I was 21 but I\u2019ve always had a love for the church and ministry,\u201d Vargas said.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cI\u2019ve always been extremely involved with things like bible study, preparing adults and children for the sacrament; I\u2019ve served on spiritual committees and have been a reader at masses. Before we moved to California, I\u2019d been asked a number of times by pastors if I\u2019d have an interest in becoming a deacon, and being ordained, but it was such a big time commitment. What most people don\u2019t realize is that in order to become a Deacon the Catholic Church requires the wife go through the same four and a half year program; if they don\u2019t agree, then the husband cannot go into it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The timing may not have worked out while the couple lived in New York, but all of that changed 18 years ago, after La Jolla-based Copley Press recruited him to serve as their vice president and chief human resources officer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Prior to joining The Copley Press, the New York University graduate served as senior vice president of the Education Group at KIII Communications, where he led human resource development for publishing companies in the fields of medicine, films, humanities, primary school education and book clubs. Prior to that, he served in various director and vice president positions of human resources at Citicorp\/Citibank.<\/span><\/p>\n

Vargas was ordained in 2006 and today, he\u2019s a deacon of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego\u00a0serving the community of Mary, Star of\u00a0the\u00a0Sea in La Jolla; he has previously served the community of Our Lady of Angels in Downtown San Diego.<\/span><\/p>\n

The opportunity to work at Father Joe\u2019s Villages, he said, allowed him to use both aspects of his background.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c[Working at Father Joe\u2019s Villages] really is running a business in every facet you can imagine, and being able to combine my business background with the pastoral side, well it\u2019s been a great combination of the two,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since he\u2019s taken the helm, Vargas has become responsible for overseeing the comprehensive services offered through St. Vincent de Paul Village, Toussaint Academy, Josue Homes and the agency\u2019s portfolio of low-income housing; which he recently all rebranded under the \u201cFather Joe\u2019s Villages\u201d name.<\/span><\/p>\n

Vargas told San Diego Downtown News that he feels truly blessed to have been invited to join the organization. Father Joe\u2019s Villages does great work, he said, but there is always more that can be done.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been meeting with civic leaders, business leaders and other stakeholders within the community to deliver one key message \u2014 I want us to come together collaboratively and if we are able to come together as a community to address the issue of homelessness, we will get this done,\u201d he said. \u201cWe all want to address this crisis in our city, so let\u2019s come together to form a comprehensive plan, and have a unified voice in order to truly get people off the street, and keep them off the street.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

On Aug. 24 [see related story<\/a>] volunteers from Father Joe\u2019s Villages set out 8,700 pairs of shoes on a Downtown street, to raise awareness to the number of homeless men, women and children there are in San Diego. Vargas has also deemed September \u201cGood Neighbor Month,\u201d with a number of activities meant to draw in the community to help combat homeless issues.<\/span><\/p>\n

For more information about Father Joe\u2019s Villages, visit neighbor.org\/Father-Joes<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Margie Palmer is a San Diego-based freelance writer who has been racking up bylines in a myriad of news publications for the past 10 years. You can write to her at margiep@alumni.pitt.edu<\/a>.<\/i><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A conversation with the new \u201cFather Joe\u201d By Margie M. Palmer It\u2019s been about five months since Jimmy Vargas, better known as Deacon Jim, stepped into the role of president and CEO of Father Joe\u2019s Villages, and while much has been written about his professional background, some of the backstory of what makes him tick […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":237969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"The man behind the cloth","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11600],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-sdnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}