Help yourself by helping others

Posted on July 8, 2018 Updated on July 8, 2018

“Our prime purpose in life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.”–Dalai Lama

Hello again!  I hope everyone is managing their stress in these tumultuous times.  Staying busy helps and helping out wherever you can is especially important.  There are so many needs, it’s hard to focus but we must persist.

With the ghastly news of children being kidnapped from their asylum-seeking parents and held in cages in federal detention, we’ve all become painfully aware now of the humanitarian crisis at our southern border.  There are various non-profits working to alleviate the misery there.  Many are working with the Catholic Charities facility in McAllen, TX, which has been involved for years with providing sanctuary for undocumented migrants threatened with deportation.  Since Trump’s election, many more churches in the US have also become involved in this effort.

We became aware of  the selfless work being done on the front lines in McAllen by a Be the Change volunteer, Betsy Sanders, from New Jersey.  She notified us about the urgent need for children’s medicine, as well as toys and shoes, for migrants caught in the cross-hairs of a war between their violent birthplace and the country their parents escaped to with the hope for safety and justice.  Sadly, that doesn’t seems to be happening now, but charities and their volunteers are valiantly attempting to correct these wrongs by working to give these freedom-seekers sanctuary.  They’ve become our unofficial US ambassadors, showing the world that the majority of us care about the persecuted and displaced from other parts of the world.  If you can help them, it will be benefit everyone.  Here’s some of what’s needed:

Children’s medicines, as well as shoes, clothing (long sleeves for cold bus rides are helpful), and small, stuffed, clean toys.

Pedialyte

Infant Advil

Infant Cough syrup

Children’s Benadryl

Tylenol, Children and Infant’s

Hand Sanitizer

Exam Gloves

 

Direct Shipments can be made to:

Catholic Charities

1719 Beaumont

McAllen, TX  78501 (McAllen, TX is the front-line of the crisis)

Or you can order from Walmart or one of the local stores (H-E-B, etc.) and have them ship to the above address.  We recently collected some money and placed an order with Walmart for delivery to the Catholic Charities and we also shipped a box of toys, medicines, etc. there.

Betsy also informed us that the Catholic Charities facility is very small, serving from forty to several hundred immigrants a day.  They are picked up from the bus station after our government “releases” them from detention.  Most of them have no means to get back home or to a sponsor, so the charities step in and provide sanctuary:  food, clothing, a shower, advice/phone to contact a relative, anything to help them and their children survive in a foreign country until they can get some clarity on their situation.  The facility is very small, but they’re looking to expand within a year.  They currently have one shower for all the females to use, so you can imagine the difficult logistics.  If you’d like to earmark money for the much-needed expansion, please send to the Catholic Charities address.

If you’d like to pool your contribution with others here in Orlando, please contact here for further info.  Thanks for any help you can give.