Parish's weekly meals evolve into full-scale migrant ministry

Published: 2006-03-03

ALTAR, Mexico (CNS) -- In the beginning, a concerned group of parishioners at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church decided that the men in Altar's town square, which is anchored on one corner by the church, looked like they needed a hot meal, explained Josefina Campuzano. After the U.S. Border Patrol began enforcement campaigns in the 1990s at the most common points on the border for crossing into the U.S. illegally, in Arizona, California and Texas, Altar became a point from which people launched efforts to sneak in. Its location near major Mexican highways and about 60 miles down a dirt road from a less densely patrolled section of the border west of the Nogales, Ariz., port of entry helped turn Altar's fading agricultural economy into one based on services to migrants. In May 2000 when Campuzano and other volunteers from the church began cooking a simple meal once a week and taking it to the plaza, between 2,000 and 2,500 people a day were passing through Altar, explained former mayor Francisco Garcia Aten. The population in Altar, in the state of Sonora, is about 14,000.

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