400 Pounds of Luggage

Kelly, Jake and I are headed to Texas today. Jake's good friend Courtney Islam is coming along with us. We're aboard an American Airlines flight that's bouncing through the air at 40,000 feet.

In the belly of this beast, there are eight suitcases stuffed to their 50 lb limit with donated clothes - jeans and jackets, hats and gloves. We want to thank our friends and neighbors for all these gifts that are bound for asylum seekers at the border.

I rode alone with the Lyft driver to the airport because Jake and Kelly didn't fit in the car with all the luggage and had to take a separate ride.

When Jake told us he didn't want to go skiing this week that he has off from school - but instead he wanted to go back to the border to help asylum seekers I felt a kind of extreme pride.

I was planning to come later this week anyway. I will be joined by a group of a dozen colleagues from Salesforce in McAllen and also Brownsville, Texas. We will be volunteering with two different charities and also working alongside several grass roots organizations in the Rio Grande Valley: Team Brownsville and the Angry Tias and Abuelas.

As we head into McAllen, there is some chaos in the air. The Humanitarian Respite Center run by Sister Norma Pimentel Catholic Charities is getting evicted from its current location in a former nursing home. They have another 85 days before they have to move but there is nowhere yet identified for the center (that serves the needs of hundreds of families every day) to go. The mayor and city council promise to help find a new location.

At the Respite Center asylum seekers get something to eat, a shower, and a change of clothes. These suitcases are going to help supply the racks of used clothes that volunteers hand out to the weary, frightened mothers and fathers clutching their little ones lest they get separated In the crowd.

Our team is working to help Catholic Charities raise funds to continue their mission.

We'll also be spending time in Brownsville where we'll be doing a lot of work with Good Neighbor Settlement House who run Respite services for asylum seekers released from federal custody in that city. They also need your financial help.

The Salesforce team is going to be blogging the trip over at http://www.border19.com/