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PROSPECT HEIGHTS — During the day, Queens native Jason Galindo works as an architect at an architectural firm Zaskorski & Associates, working on renovating churches throughout the diocese. In the evenings, he went to St. Brigid’s Catholic Church in Bushwick, where he served as youth pastor. In both roles, he found a way to celebrate his faith and integrate it into every aspect of his life.
“There are a lot of connections between architecture and youth groups. It’s not something you do alone. It’s a collaboration. It’s a team effort,” Galindo said.
Every Thursday and Friday, Galindo hops on his electric scooter or car and sets off from his home in Long Island City. In October, Galindo found himself starting over again when he was appointed youth minister at St. Brigid.
In a year and a half as youth pastor at St. Bartholomew’s Catholic Church in Elmhurst, Galindo developed youth programming that included extensive sports competitions and a TikTok presence that leveraged the multimedia platform to engage young Catholics .
During his five months at St. Brigid, he brought what he learned at Elmhurst to Bushwick, building a leadership team and helping them create a TikTok page to promote their youth and sports ministry. There are currently 160 children in the youth group, ranging in age from junior high school to high school.
After graduating from college three years ago and landing his dream job, Galindo can easily recall the anxiety of self-discovery that served him well as a youth minister.
He supported them spiritually through prayer. For their futures and careers, he spent his days away from church sitting in on Zoom calls, helping his team build resumes and practice interviews.
“Especially my high school students, a lot of them feel stressed out about not knowing what they want to be and what they want to do. So I talk to them and tell them you have four more years of high school to figure out what you want to do. What to do. But even if you don’t know, I figured it out four years ago,” he said.
This relationship was witnessed firsthand during St. Bartholomew’s Father Andrew Tsui, the parish priest of the church.
“He’s closer in age and he can relate to them in terms of culture and life experiences… Just the fact that he’s living out his faith is great, so they can see that. [they] You can literally be on fire for the Lord. Father Xu said.
The connections between the two halves of Galindo’s life don’t stop there. Even before Galindo served as youth pastor, he was involved in church activities. Ever since he was a teenager, he had always thought it would be better for the Catholic Church if more young Catholics got involved, and decided it could start with him. But he didn’t know there was a formal way for him to follow this passion.
The same thing happened with becoming an architect. As a child, Galindo always knew he wanted to do something involving architecture and painting, endlessly doodling squares and triangles on scrap paper—he just didn’t know there was a job for him.
As a teenager, he attended the Manhattan High School of Art and Design. He was considering a career in architecture — and for a while, he thought he might become a priest. However, after graduating from high school in 2012, he needed to take some time off to find a job to support his family.
But in 2019, he decided to go back to school, attending Queens Community College and earning an associate’s degree. During that time, he served as sacristan at St. Bartholomew’s, where he met a visiting priest who asked him what he wanted to do with his career. After a while, Galindo said he had always wanted to build a church.
“I remember that event like it was yesterday. He put his hand on my head and said: ‘We don’t need architects to build churches. We need architects to restore them. Two years later, I entered the most prestigious Church Renovation and Restoration Company,” Galindo said.
His pastor, Father Richard Bother, introduced him to Zaskorski & Associates, who renovated St. Bartholomew’s in the past. As a Catholic, Galindo had the advantage of incorporating his knowledge of the church into his plans for the renovation. When he visits a church, the first place he looks is the sacristy to make sure there aren’t any leaks there.
“Having that shared mission of restoring a place of worship, not just my house, I think that’s something I’m very grateful for,” he said.
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