Every day, Sister Sindi and Marina walk through their Brownsville neighborhood, checking on families in need and welcoming new neighbors. This is how they met Maria, a young mother of six children who recently sought asylum from a town directly across the border, seeking refuge from ongoing violence and extortion from their family business. Sisters Sindi and Marina quickly realized with six children, Maria needed support. “The way you see them today is how they arrived. They have nothing,” Sister Marina shared. To make ends meet, Maria sells caramel apple dishes in the neighborhood, but this only goes so far. We asked the kids what they missed most about their home. Among the top were “our cousins, our house, and our food.” The 13-year-old boy added “Pizza!” The Sisters and San Felipe de Jesus parish in Brownsville have been fundraising to move Maria and her family into more adequate living conditions. They're also working to get the kids vaccinated before the school … [Read more...] about Missing Home
Archives for August 2019
Something for Everyone
The community center within Proyecto Desarrollo Humano (The Human Development Project) is a busy place. Community members and their children come together to learn new skills, study, and complete group projects together. The center is run by Sister Fatima, a Catholic nun from India, who's spent the past few decades in the Rio Grande Valley, working with Mexican immigrant mothers. While there are many activities taking place each day at the center, the children lack things to do to keep them busy while their mothers are tending to the organic garden, sweating it out in Zumba, or in sewing class. During a brainstorming session, the parents said they wished the kids had more things to keep them occupied, items all kids enjoy – toys, coloring books, blocks. Sister Fatima has built a center that allows mothers to be mothers - and we wanted to make sure the kids could also be kids. A quick run to Walmart resulted in tons of bright toys, sports equipment, and coloring … [Read more...] about Something for Everyone
Catching the Rays
Hello hello! I'm Annie, a proud member of the Alight team that's doing the doable at the border. I'm excited to share with you a few stories from people we've met on this journey - and some of the good we've been able to leave behind. Every Tuesday, without fail, the women of Rayo de Luz buy groceries and use their own kitchens to bring a warm meal to the homeless community in Harlingen, Texas. They relentlessly show up with $20 of their own money each week and 54 tacos and hot coffee in hand. They always start at the back of the line. Because as Sister Shirley believes, “the last shall be first.” When the last person is served, the women quickly clean up and rush off to their "real" jobs. The 12 Latina mothers who make up Rayo de Luz are everyday people from the Harlingen community, many immigrants themselves. They're giving back in the small ways they can, one person at a time, with a warm meal and a warm embrace. “The most important thing is that they feel welcome,” … [Read more...] about Catching the Rays
A New Pair of Pants
Reynosa is a border town in Mexico across the Rio Grande from Hidalgo, Texas. After crossing the international bridge, it doesn’t take long to realize that you’ve entered another world. Specifically, you've entered the Mexican state of Tamaulipas — a place that provides refuge to those fleeing violence and poverty in other countries, while also creating refugees of its own due to the violence and poverty that exists within its borders. La Casa del Migrante Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, directed by Sister Catalina, is one of the shelters in Reynosa that tends to displaced peoples. When we visited on one of the last days of July, the shelter was only about half-full. This was not the case for their sister shelter in Matamoros, which had received the group of deported Mexicans for the month of July. But the shelters alternative months - and with the calendar soon to change, the Reynosa shelter was gearing up to receive the August group of deportees. The people who arrive … [Read more...] about A New Pair of Pants
A Bridge Between
If you stopped to tie your shoe while following Elisa of the Angry Tías y Abuelas across the Gateway International Bridge, you might get left behind. Elisa walks with a purpose, pulling behind her a rickety cart stocked full of personal care packages for the newly arrived migrants on the other side. She makes this journey six times a week, setting out on foot from her home in Brownsville, Texas, crossing the bridge into Matamoros, Mexico, distributing the care packages to the migrants who have come to seek asylum, and then hurrying back across the bridge so she can pass through American customs and leave on time for work. As she loaded me up with care packages outside the Matamoros aduana, Elisa told me to first take care of the women. Her resources are limited, and that's who she wants to help first. What's more, the care packages that Elisa has put together contain some products that men would find little use for... It soon became clear that one of the best ways we could … [Read more...] about A Bridge Between
Back to School
Sister Maureen slams on the breaks of her beat-up, red pickup truck in front of a small, ramshackle home in Nuevo Progreso, Mexico. She asks the young girl outside if her brother is home, and the girl goes inside to get him. A moppy-headed teenage boy emerges and tentatively approaches the car. He is one of the many children in the impoverished border town who is “sponsored” by a community member in Maureen’s home of Progreso, Texas, just across the Rio Grande. “Where are your thank-you letters?” Maureen asks in her soft but distinctively Bostonian voice. “Se me olvidé.” I forgot, said the young boy. Maureen told him that she would return in a few days, and that he should have three letters written by then, one for each sponsor. “I’m gonna haunt you if you don’t,” she says only half-kiddingly as we pull away. Sister Maureen visits Nuevo Progreso about four times a week. Accompanied by her friends Vicki and Ken, they roll through the community, stopping at different … [Read more...] about Back to School
The First Step
How do you begin to help when someone needs everything? How can you choose what to give when they have next to nothing? I felt this sense of helplessness when I met Veronica and her six children. She had newly arrived family from Matamoros, Mexico, and were being served by the Sisters at San Felipe de Jesus in Brownsville, Texas. They had claimed asylum at the beginning of May after being forced to flee their home, fleeing extortionist threats from the local cartel. Failure to comply with extortion already resulted in the disappearance of her husband, and according to her neighbors who warned Verónica not to return home, their oldest son, 13 year old Armando, would have been next. Verónica and her children left town with nothing, arriving at the border solely with the clothes on their backs. Currently living in a dilapidated trailer behind a Brownsville taqueria, Verónica and her family need everything. They need food, clothes, medicine, and a new home. So for this family, … [Read more...] about The First Step
Being Human
El Proyecto Desarrollo Humano (The Human Development Project) is true to its name. When we pulled up to the premises, we saw a group of women under an outdoor pavilion doing Zumba, while their children played in the park. Sister Fatima helps to run this facility, which gives community members access to sewing classes, an organic garden, medical and dental services, a computer lab, English classes, youth education, and a thrift store. It's a place that truly focuses on the development of human beings in their entirety. But like many organizations in places like Peñitas, Texas, the resources that Proyecto Desarrollo Humano possess are far more limited than its community’s needs. In our brainstorming session, Sister Fatima noted that this has negatively affected attendance of many of their classes, particularly because they've struggled to provide childcare. This means that many of the community’s mothers - who would love to do Zumba and learn English - are unable to do so with … [Read more...] about Being Human
The Next Stop
The cellphone began ringing at 9:44 AM. It was an assistant for Sister Norma, reminding us gently that she had a very brief window to meet - and she didn't want to be late for her next appointment. So we quickly parked our car and ran to the door, where the Sister was waiting to greet us. Such is the life of Sister Norma Pimentel, one of the leading faces of the humanitarian effort to help displaced peoples near the U.S.-Mexico border - and consequently, one of the busiest people on the planet. She's the Executive Director for the Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, and on this day, was meeting us at the Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Texas. For many migrants, the respite center signals the last stop of the Rio Grande Valley portion of their journeys. They arrive on buses coming straight from the detention facilities that have housed them for or months. Their stay in the Respite Center will be briefer - less than a day - but Sister Norma and her colleagues do … [Read more...] about The Next Stop
A Special Meal
There is a philosophy behind 365: “When the world’s problems seem insurmountable, we do the doable.” The problems that lead to displaced peoples — the humanitarian crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border included — are deep-rooted and complicated. And I realize that they're problems that can't be solved in a day. There are large scale, deep rooted causes that need to be addressed - but we also need to do what we can now. Rayo de Luz in McAllen, Texas, is a good example of an organization that responds to the “now” by doing the doable. A significant homeless population exists in this community, and while the root causes are complex, addressing the immediate needs of that community was something we could do. Rayo de Luz is a non-profit led by Sister Shirley of Little Falls, Minnesota. Every Tuesday morning, Shirley and her small army of women volunteers provide breakfast outside the Sacred Heart Catholic Church to struggling individuals in the community. The breakfast is … [Read more...] about A Special Meal