From the age of 14, Reggio spent the next fourteen years in fasting, times of silence, and prayer, training to be a friar within the Congregation of Christian Brothers, a Roman Catholic pontifical teaching order. During his time with the order, Reggio co-founded La Clinica de la Gente, a facility that provided medical care to 12,000 community members in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and La Gente, a community-organizing project in northern New Mexico's barrios. In 1963 he co-founded Young Citizens for Action, a community organization project that aided juveniles in the street gangs of Santa Fe. After he left the order, he co-founded the Institute for Regional Education in Santa Fe, a non-profit foundation focused on media development, the arts, community organization, and research, in 1972.