By Deacon Arnold Pancratz
JACKSON — When St. Richard parishioner John McDonough heard his business associate, Irene Gallagher, tell about crying herself to sleep with an empty stomach as a child in Mexico, he decided to visit her village.
Cihuatlan, in western Mexico not far from the ocean in the Diocese of Colima, is typical of impoverished small towns: McDonough met a group of men who call themselves the 20-30 Club, similar to the Knights of Columbus or Holy Name Society in the United States. Each month the men would try to raise funds to feed needy families.
McDonough got the men to let him modify their meeting place for feeding “the poorest of the poor children.” This included a kitchen, covered feeding area and restrooms. One of the club members, Alejandro Mejia, a carpenter, identified 35 children ages 6 to 12 as “the poorest of the poor.”
Mejia volunteers his services for the daily purchase of supplies. His wife, Esperanza, volunteers her service in preparing and serving the meals. Five days a week the children get a meal consisting of tortillas, a meaty stew, vitamins and a piece of fruit. McDonough arranged with the local health officials to ensure the food was free of intestinal parasites.
My sister Mary Russell has been active in Heifers International and I suggested we give each child five baby chicks. When the chickens got big enough to go in the pot, the child could keep one for his family. But none of the chicks survived!
Because there are no table scraps at a Mexican meal and no succulent weeds growing on the small amount of land surrounding their homes, the chicks didn’t have enough to eat. I thought that if we could get the children growing some of their own foodstuff that would teach them survival skills as well as helping with the cost of feeding them.
They were given the use of a plot of land but it seems no one in that village knows how to garden. McDonough offered $100 to anyone who could teach the children and got no takers!
Most of the children there have had to drop out of school after the sixth grade to help support their families. One of McDonough’s friends has provided a scholarship so that four of the most promising will get to complete high school.
McDonough has been funding the program by soliciting funds from his business associates, hosting a party for them each fall.
Mrs. Gallagher prepares a variety of Mexican foods and McDonough provides Margaritas, Mexican beer and sodas. However, these funds are more and more difficult to come by and McDonough needs a broader base of support.
Donations are made to St. Richard Catholic Church, earmarked “Mexican Feeding Program” so they are deductible for those who itemize on their tax returns. Donations are only used for food as McDonough covers overhead expenses.
McDonough revisits the feeding center about once a year, taking the children school supplies, toys and goodies. Thanks to donations from some of McDonough’s friends, when he visits the village in March each child gets new sneakers, a backpack and a T-shirt with logo identifying the program.
