Hello, hello! We’re back at Casa de Luz in Tijuana today, continuing to work with the children of the house. Out of the thirty house members, ten of them are children. And five of them are old enough to go to a local school. Now that we knew they were set for at home entertainment, we wanted to make sure that they were prepared to be at school, too. Many Mexican schools have a dress code or uniform, and while this includes shoes, not every family can afford shoes that are up to the school’s standards. This was the case at Casa de Luz, where the children didn’t have the proper black shoes they needed as a part of their uniform. So, we went out to buy shoes for the kids! One set of shoes would be for the children to wear to school, and another set would be for sports and fun. When we got home from the store with these, the kids were ecstatic! “Tomorrow, at the school, they will have a festival and they would have been the only kids without shoes," said Irving, one of … [Read more...] about A Shoe In

Hello, and greetings from Tijuana! We’re spending the next few days here working with three different collective and intentional community houses that focus on serving LGBT refugees. These communities house people from all over — Cuba, Jamaica, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and from time to time, people from as far away as Ghana or Iran. The newest house, Casa de Luz, has been quick to create a strong community. But it's still working to get some of the basics taken care of and make the house feel more like a home. To help get them started, we decided to buy them some additional items to fill out their kid’s corner! They had already gotten started with some pads for the floor, a handful of books, and couple of toys, but we wanted to give a wider variety of options for the kiddos. So we got some more floor pads, more books, balls, bubbles, play-doh and some soft and cuddly animals. The balls were an instant hit with the toddlers! We also wanted to make sure that the … [Read more...] about Life Goes On