Photo: Natacha Larnaud for CBS News.
From CBS News: “Jacqueline and her two kids sit at a bus station in Brownsville, Texas, hours after being released from Border Patrol custody on April 30, 2021.”
This is the season of the couple who had no place to rest — and the baby who whose gifts were gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Will all the newly displaced children of 2023 have any gifts?
Theresa Vargas wrote at the Washington Post last year about a program for migrant children that made some little travelers very happy.
“The young boy in the red and black jacket didn’t need to look through the toys sitting on the blanket in front of him. As other children walked past stuffed animals, puzzles and building blocks, looking for items that called to them, he made his way straight to a dump truck almost half his size. If you had peeked in on that moment, which took place outside a Virginia church, you would have seen that boy holding the truck tightly. …
“Days before the volunteer collective Food Justice DMV planned to hold the giveaway event on Dec. 17, founder Denise Woods sent out an SOS, letting supporters know that volunteers didn’t have enough food or toys this year to give to the migrant families they serve in the Washington region. What makes the group’s toy collection different from the many others that take place at this time of year is volunteers gather secondhand items and get them to families who might fall beyond the reach of other organized efforts, because of language barriers and deportation fears.
“ ‘It pains me that people who have lost all coming here, may not celebrate Navidad the way they deserve and the way we want: a warm plate of food from home: beans, rice oil and maseca and a side of gifts,’ Woods wrote in an email at the time. …
“People in D.C., Maryland and Virginia started looking through their homes and gathering the toys their children and grandchildren no longer used. They then drove them to one of several places that were collecting items on behalf of Food Justice DMV.
“They brought puzzles and board games and art kits. They brought a toy stove, a toy shopping cart and a bike. They brought small stuffed animals and medium stuffed animals and jumbo stuffed animals. …
“Thousands of people throughout the Washington region responded. All it took was learning that children around them might go without to decide they wouldn’t let that happen. …
“By the time the giveaway event arrived, volunteers were carting truckloads of items to a church in Falls Church. There, migrant families found them spread across blankets and tables. Children who might not have received anything for Christmas left with their arms full and their parents left carrying bags of items. …
“[One teen] said her mom is from Guatemala and works hard at her cleaning job to pay the rent and keep the family fed, but that doesn’t leave much money for her to buy presents during the holidays. That day at the church, the teenager said, her mom and the whole family left smiling.
“ ‘We were so thankful,’ she said. ‘I just want to thank everyone so much.’ …
“ ‘For so long I think we felt, not accurately, that no one really cared, because we were existing on fumes and praying we would make our food costs,’ Woods said. ‘Now we know people do care and care deeply.’ …
“The strangers who came together to help the families recognized the system is broken, not people, she said.”
More at the Post, here.
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