Advanced SearchBefore they were separated by an international fence, the sister-cities of Nogales, Ariz., and Nogales, Sonora, were a community one in the same.
Many residents still view the cities as split halves of the same historic community, crossing over every day — in both directions — to go to work or to visit family.
That’s one reason the Santa Cruz Community Foundation, headquartered on the U.S. side, partners with a sister organization in Sonora, FESAC (Fundacion del Empresariado Sonorense), to help fund about 30 non-profit organizations on both sides of the border.
 Migrants who were caught and bused back to Mexico wait for the doors of the soup kitchen to open, for their one guaranteed meal that day. Contributed photo |
SCCF was founded in 2001 by area residents as a permanent resource for the entire county, according to Executive Director Robert Phillips, formerly executive director of the St. Andrew’s Children’s Clinic in Nogales before joining the foundation in 2008.
SCCF, started by a group of Nogales families active in local philanthropy, is an affiliate of the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona and a member of the U.S.-Mexico Border Philanthropy Partnership. Its board of directors consists of community leaders from Santa Cruz County, and volunteers come from all over the Santa Cruz Valley, including Green Valley.
In a recent grant year, 16 local agencies received more than $54,000 in grant support and 38 local youths were awarded scholarships for more than $140,000.
But the recent downturn in the economy has had a palpable effect in Santa Cruz County, one of the poorest counties in Arizona, and like all non-profit organizations they’re looking for help from donors and volunteers.
With a small office and a young, passionate staff – a Spanish-language graduate, a former Peace Corps worker and a volunteer from the AmeriCorp’s VISTA program — the growing foundation is humble but effective, and full of heart.
South of the border fence, Alma Cota de Yanez, executive director of FESAC, has her hands full with the many Sonora organizations both foundations are working to support. She also heads a small staff, and like SCCF, a board of directors to help direct the goals of the young foundation, which seems to branch out into every corner of the community that needs its help.
Alma was a “housewife” up until about seven years ago, she says, when her only son left for college and she decided to redirect her attentions toward a higher purpose. Volunteer work opened her eyes to the rampant need all around her city, and she never looked back.
“It’s what I was meant to be doing all along,” she says.
South of
the border
One of the organizations the two foundations supports is Desarrollo Integral Juvenil, which runs several community centers in Nogales, Sonora. The centers host low-cost day care centers, after-school programs and skill-building classes for adults.
One location is just a five-minute drive from the tourist-centric downtown Nogales, in the heart of the impoverished Flores Magon neighborhood. Here squatters, many of whom work in nearby factories, live in ramshackle structures made of whatever materials they can find.
The newly built community center, looking out of place next to the scrap-metal homes, is a welcome retreat for local families.
A day care center for infants and pre-school-aged children charges parents who can afford it just $8.50 per week. Down the hall, women learn how to sew and make bread, skills they can use to earn money for their families.
Groups that teach young women about self-esteem, sex education and domestic-violence awareness are also run out of the various centers, Alma says.
“In this neighborhood, you see many 30-year-old grandmothers,” she added.
Alma believes education is the key to stopping the cycle of poverty, and eventually, FESAC wants to offer Montessori instruction at the day care centers.
“One of our main goals with these programs is to teach these kids to stay in school,” she says. “That might be one solution to our border problem.”
Diligent madres
Another organization that relies heavily upon funding from FESAC and the SCCF is Venciendo al Autismo, a center for children with autism founded and run by mothers of effected children.
Headquartered in a small converted house, Venciendo al Autismo helps 37 children and adults with varying degrees of autism, along with their families. Arts and crafts projects and games keep them busy during the day, while a paid psychiatrist helps with behavioral management, physical therapies and diet management.
Families of autistic children often suffer economically because one parent has to stay home to take care of the child, Alma explained.
Another problem they face is paying for the special dietary needs of their autistic children, who benefit greatly from a diet free from wheat, sugar and dairy products. The expensive meals make it difficult to buy food for the rest of the family, leading FESAC to coordinate with the local food bank on the organization’s behalf.
One of their goals is to raise awareness of autism within the community: How to diagnose the disease (one mother didn’t know her son was autistic until he was 30 years old); how to treat it; and how to treat those affected by it — by going into schools and talking to students about their special-needs classmates.
However, many disabled children in Mexico do not attend school. “Legally, they should be in school, but no one enforces it,” Alma said.
Because of behavioral improvements from their time at the center, six autistic children are now in public school, “when it would have been impossible a year ago.”
She says she’s amazed that the mothers are able to accomplish so much with so little funding. Earlier this year, they baked and sold tamales to pay for plane tickets to attend a special medical conference on autism.
“These women don’t let anything stand in their way.”
On a hot day in October, more than 100 men and women wait in the sun for the doors of a soup kitchen to open, for their one guaranteed meal that day.
They are migrants. Some have attempted to cross the border into the United States, were caught and bused back to Mexico; others have just arrived and are waiting for their coyote. One such family is an Indigenous couple from southern Mexico and their three small children.
The Comedor para Migrantes soup kitchen in downtown Nogales, run by nuns from a nearby parish, operates solely on donations and volunteer work. A new stove and set of kitchen equipment was purchased recently with funds from the Santa Cruz Community Foundation.
Phillips says that workers at the shelter where the family is most likely staying do their best to discourage migrants from crossing the border into the Arizona desert. He says “coyote” is an accurate word for the men who take money to smuggle migrants through dangerous terrains, because “those people are predators.”
While the nuns and volunteers who cook soup and bake fresh tortillas for these migrants don’t condone what they’ve come to do, all involved want to do what they can to help in what some may see as a hopeless situation.
Before each meal, the sisters lead the migrants in prayer.
Alma says she is upset by the sight of the young family, and wonders what will become of them.
“Seven years ago, my primary concern was in making money for this foundation,” she said. “But not anymore.”
(Contact jrichardson@gvnews.com at (520) 547-9726.)
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