"Operations Director Alfonso Mendez tried to reassure them that if U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement showed up, he would rush them into the building and lock the doors. Still, they weren't convinced. "I'm very sad because everybody has the right to receive food," said Mendez, who relied on these food boxes for his wife and two small children when he fled Columbia in 2000. "It's not a good thing that they feel afraid to come.""
"So now, like other local nonprofits with clients experiencing the same fears, Santa Maria Urban Ministry is taking food to the people, setting up market-style giveaways at schools and taking pallets of groceries to secret places where immigrants feel safer. "We are doing things to get food to people without drawing attention to them or to us," said Louis Powell, director of the nonprofit."
Santa Maria Urban Ministry in San Jose formerly drew long lines of low-income immigrant families for free food, but heightened federal immigration enforcement and masked arrests have driven families away from public distributions. Fear of detention has erased visible lines and reduced in-person attendance despite staff assurances of safety. Nonprofits now deliver food directly, stage market-style giveaways at schools, and transport pallets of groceries to discreet locations where immigrants feel safer. Donation support is sought to fund food transport, replace falling contributions, and sustain literacy and other client services. The ministry also provides meals, clothing, and basic education programs.
Read at The Mercury News
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]