Every day, Sister Sindi and Marina walk through their Brownsville neighborhood, checking on families in need and welcoming new neighbors. This is how they met Maria, a young mother of six children who recently sought asylum from a town directly across the border, seeking refuge from ongoing violence and extortion from their family business.
Sisters Sindi and Marina quickly realized with six children, Maria needed support.
“The way you see them today is how they arrived. They have nothing,” Sister Marina shared. To make ends meet, Maria sells caramel apple dishes in the neighborhood, but this only goes so far.
We asked the kids what they missed most about their home. Among the top were “our cousins, our house, and our food.” The 13-year-old boy added “Pizza!”
The Sisters and San Felipe de Jesus parish in Brownsville have been fundraising to move Maria and her family into more adequate living conditions. They’re also working to get the kids vaccinated before the school year begins.
Another big need is access to food for the family. So we wanted to pitch in to ensure the family has food on the table – every day. They were grateful for a gift card from the local grocery store where they can stock up on food items, and where Maria can invest in more supplies for her caramel apple delicacies.
And for a special treat, we wanted to give the kids a little taste of home – with a surprise pizza party, complete with lots of laughs, plenty of soda, and many greasy fingers.
Meet Annie!
Annie Nolte-Henning is a Project Manager at Alight and serves as Lead for the Color Movement co-creation with Sisters Rising Worldwide. Annie works to find others and lead a group of amazing people to deliver on Alight’s promise to do more and better by the people we serve. She’s proud of helping start a girl’s running club in a refugee camp and being a member of the only Liberian-led team during the 2014 West Africa Ebola crisis.
