Viva la vida

Luz Pena, from Brightwood Health Center, called me yesterday saying that this man had just been discharged from the hospital and him and his wife had no food or work. Luis and I went to visit them this afternoon and brought them some masa harina, beans and rice. After bringing them this stuff, we went to Stop and Shop and bought them more food. Fruit, yogurt, a barbecued chicken, cheese, a bottle of water, some blueberry pie (because man, and women, do not live by bread alone) and a few more items. The man had just had surgery to repair a perforated kidney and his wife had just had surgery to remove part of her uterus. She was so worried and said, I don't know what we'll do. Neither of them can work and all they have is $200 from Angel's last paycheck and their rent of $300 was due yesterday on October 1st. They got here about 4 months ago after spending about a month in Virginia, which obviously hadn't gone well. They came here from Guatemala. Their house had no furniture except for a love seat that folds out to a single bed and one low table. Nothing else. Luis and I decided we need to help them raise a little money to carry them through this month, and perhaps beyond. $200 would be good and if we raise a little more we're going to save it for this type of emergency.

Every month when we give away food we ask immigrants to contribute a dollar or two, if they have it, so that we can put it back into the food fund. We've decided that when we start the food distribution in November we'll going to ask for this contribution again but we're going to save it so that we can help people when they are in a bad situation. We'll create a little revolving fund. We'll ask people to pay us back when they are back on their feet so that the fund will continue to help others. We just can't sit by while our neighbors starve and suffer this way. I don't even want to think how people are going to get through the winter.

Can you help with a small donation? If so, please email me at

maria.cuerda@gmail.com

I'll keep you posted on our efforts. Please feel free to distribute this to your friends and neighbors.

Thanks.