Commissioner Monestime to name the new community center at Oak Grove Park as "The Father Gerard Jean-Juste Community Center"

MIAMI, FL – On Tuesday, May 6, 2014 the Board of County Commissioners unanimously approved a resolution sponsored by Commissioner Jean Monestime to name the community center to be constructed at Oak Grove Park, 690 N.E. 159th Street in District 2 as the “Father Gerard Jean-Juste Community Center.” 

Father Gerard Jean-Juste was born in 1946 in Cavaillon, Haiti and became the first Haitian ordained as a Catholic priest in the United States. Father Jean-Juste also founded the Miami-based Haitian Refugee Center in the 1970s in order to help Haitian refugees. Father Jean-Juste is hailed as a defender of the human rights of Haitians and it is only appropriate that Miami should honor his legacy in the same neighborhood from where he, for many years, fought and was a tireless crusader for social justice for Haiti’s poor. Father Gerard passed away on May 27, 2009.

“It is an honor to be able to show respect to Father Jean-Juste by naming the community center at Oak Grove after him,” said Commissioner Monestime. “He was a respectable and influential member of our community and this is a way of continuing his legacy."

For more information, please call the Office of Commissioner Jean Monestime at 305-694-2779.