The Rural Life & Community Development Office empowers communities to support rural people, family farms, and local businesses that promote sustainable community development in healthy environments.

The Rural Life office was opened in the mid-1980’s during the farm crisis to respond to the economic downturn that resulted in over 2,000 farm foreclosures. At that time, a rural retreat team was formed to provide outreach services, support, counseling and spiritual guidance to the hundreds of farm families undergoing economic hardship.

As part of a comprehensive review of the social services delivery of the Archdiocese of Dubuque in 2007, the name of the office was changed to Rural Life & Community Development to better reflect the interdependence of farms and the communities that surround them, as well as the continued work of empowering people to support local community.

Rural Life & Community Development staff and Catholic Charities staff continue to network with local churches, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, National Catholic Rural Life Conference, and other non-governmental and governmental organizations in the county, state and nation to provide advocacy and support services to the rural communities of the Archdiocese and the state of Iowa. Rural Life & Community Development staff also serve as part of the Iowa Catholic Conference’s Social Concerns committee to advocate for social justice in rural issues.

Today, rural regions of the Archdiocese are being dominated by large, powerful global forces which are leading to poverty and loss of farm land at the same time that many new expensive homes are being built on land which once produced food and supported family farmers and surrounding communities. The Rural Life & Community Development Office works as a resource for poor families and for parishes concerned about the poor suffering from the injustices adherent in the concentration of wealth and property.

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops in their document, For I Was Hungry & You Gave Me Food: Catholic Reflections on Food, Farmers, and Farmworkers, November 2003, remind us “to place the life and dignity of the human person at the center of the discussions and decisions on agriculture.” The Rural Life & Community Development Office seeks to engage rural and urban people in a critical dialogue about the ethics of how our food is produced in an increasingly concentrated food system, and to assist them in acting and advocating for a food system which cares for environment, community, and the dignity of farmers and farm workers.

The Rural Life & Community Development Office also serves as a resource to the Archdiocese in attempting to meet changing needs resulting from changing demographics.