SAN DIEGO – At the height of the pandemic, a neighbor of a Latin neighborhood of San Diego brought out a table with some fruit and vegetables to help the most needy. He called it the “Mesa de Justicia y Esperanza” , a project that now feeds more than 1 free of charge, 200 families every month.
This small initiative arose out of a “genuine desire to help, even with a little bit ”to the families most impacted by the pandemic in the Sherman neighborhood, in San Diego , explains its creator, Christian Ramírez .
It started last year with a few dozen oranges, lemons and a few vegetables, but now trucks with donated food arrive at this table and it has a group of immigrant mothers who take turns helping the community all day.
“My family and I were very concerned when we saw other families in the neighborhood without unemployment help , without transport, food or official aid ”, recalls Ramírez.
Faced with this scenario, he took out a table from his house on which he spread the products grown in his garden ín and added some cans of food and placed a sign in which he invited passersby to take whatever they needed from there , and, if they could, they would barter something for other neighbors also needy.
Soon elderly people began to arrive in search of potatoes and fruits and left canned goods or other perishable products in exchange.
The table, Ramírez says, has supported immigrants from “almost all over the world” this year, although most of the people who come in search of food are Latinos.
Direct help for those in need due to the pandemic
While waiting for the volunteers to finish arranging food. Mrs. Armida Lara, a neighbor of the Latin neighborhood of Logan, explains that this project has been a “great help” for them in the midst of the pandemic and sees “admirable” what these “people with such a good heart” do.
The need was real. Food banks were generally far away and their opening hours were not accessible either to families who, in the midst of one of the fiercest stages of the pandemic, had to transfer at public transportation for hours to get closer to them.
And as the residents of this area of San Diego County found out about the project of the table, they began to participate with what they could.
They were joined by residents of neighborhoods with greater purchasing power who began to collect donations for this project that little by little was ceasing to be just one space that offered the small table to be something much bigger.
Donations of farm products began to arrive
Now there are unions that make some purchases and go to Sherman to leave them, but the most notable change began when People linked to the countryside joined the project.
Ramírez explains that an importer of fresh Mexican products began to donate shipments of fruits and vegetables to the table that, if stored longer, could spoil.
“They bring us boxes of products that perhaps are no longer as fresh as those that people would find in a supermarket, but that are still perfect to prepare food in the next few days, ”he says.
Now agricultural producers from San Diego County are also arriving and there are food chain stores that supply to the immigrant neighborhood table .
Immigrant mothers take over the table
After a few months, the project overtook the founder and some of the mothers of Immigrant families who benefited from this solidarity initiative decided to join .
Alma Alcantar, a Mexican mother, agrees with her children each day the time she will donate to the “Table of Justice and Hope.”
“Sometimes I come three hours a day, sometimes four, depending on whether I can take care of my house obligations without neglecting my family,” he explains.
Alcantar is part of a team of eight Mexican and Guatemalan mothers on whom the project now rests .
“We open the sacks of rice, beans or sugar, and we separate them into plastic bags by the pound, so that more people can touch them,” explains the woman.
A while after loading sacks of onion and potatoes, unpacking and order are canned, the group of mothers sweat but reflect satisfaction.
“Nothing as nice as helping people” , says a Guatemalan mother, too shy to identify herself to Efe.
The volunteer immigrant mothers, “true heroines of the community,” according to Ramírez, were also called a few weeks ago to help in the vaccination process against COVID – 19 at Sherman Community Center , because now they are well known in the neighborhood.