Our mission is to increase self sufficiency by providing weekly despensas
and supporting other educational and income opportunities for people of limited resources
in San Juan Cosala.
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Agustin was honored by the Rotary Club of Ajijic. He received the Paul Harris Award which is an international recognition of a person who has made an important contribution to the community. No one is more deserving than Agustin and by connection his family and staff; they all work to support the San Juan Cosala villagers' needs. Because it is a surprise ceremony, the only way that everyone could be certain that Agustin would be present was to host the event at Viva Mexico. He and his staff prepared a delicious buffet only to be interrupted for the presentation. Great surprise, great man, great family.
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Operation Feed continues to honor its original purpose ... to make sure that the neediest villagers have adequate food. The despensa program has grown to 106 families, serving over 550 people. Agustin and his sons pick up despensa items in Jocotepec twice a month. People work on Thursday morning packing the rice, beans, soy, and oats bags. Another team comes to Viva Mexico during the week and put all the items into each families despensa bag. Each Egg Lady Team come once a month to box up the eggs. And Nora buys, chops, and bags the fresh vegetables twice a month.
Despensa bags include: a kilo of rice, kilo of beans, kilo of oats, kilo of soy, a bottle of cooking oil, a dozen eggs, 3 bags of pasta, a bag of powdered milk, tuna or vegetables. 
Beyond the despensas that are provided, Operation Feed has expanded to serve other needs. We are helping to provide wheelchairs, canes, walkers, portable toilets, and glasses. English classes are offered for free to all villagers. Clothing is provided twice a year. School shoes are given to each family. And small business opportunities are supported.
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Slideshow of Faces from our
May Clothing Drive Distribution |
Volunteers at Clothing Drive Distribution
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Want to know more about Operation Feed and the work that it performs?
Click on the buttons below to find out more about each project.
Click on the buttons below to find out more about each project.
Every week volunteers donate their time to purchase, prepare, and distribute food packages to 96 families, totaling more than 500 people. This bag of groceries might keep a family from extreme hunger or let that family spend their money on bus fare to get children to school. What ever way it helps, it makes a huge difference in their survival. The cost for 102 families? About 30,000 pesos a month. That's about 300 pesos a month per family. Check out the home delivery program. 
Following Agustin's lead, Operation Feed is supporting English classes. Agustin believes learning English and taking part in responsibility building programs are keys to improving the family's economics. The classes are for anyone in the village - ages 6 on.
With the guidance of Janine Kirkland, a group of village women are making items that are useful and beautiful. Hats, rugs, shawls, glass covers to keep bugs out of the wine, scarves, dog coats, and more. All the yarn and beads are donated; all the profits go directly to the women. Making 200 pesos a week can mean so much to our women. Consider hosting Janine and one of the women at a club meeting or party.
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What new and interesting dishes can be made with the items given in the despensa? Lynn Sim has stepped up to the challenge for this year. She has met twice with groups of women to learn what they would like to learn and share.
Helping the women learn to create nutritious meals is a challenge given the facts that they have little money to spend and need to be one pot, open fire, no oven recipes. 
The Egg Ladies Program began with the desire to increase the nutritional content of the food despensas that are handed out each week to Operation Feed families. These women pay for the eggs and then come to Viva Mexico to package the eggs. Each family gets a dozen eggs each week. The Egg Ladies also do a number of other special projects for our recipients and have a lot of fun doing it.
Operation Feed works to fill special need of our families. Filimon needed a new wheelchair and Lisa made sure she trucked one down from Portland, OR. Many of our clients have vision problems, so between Tom, Buddy, and Laura we are able to provide both prescription and readers. If you are renovating, please let us know. Our families can use old cabinets, doors, windows, sinks, etc.
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One of the highlights for the people of San Juan Cosala is the clothing drive. Many of the volunteers at Operation Feed work collecting clothes for the families who receive the weekly food despensas, as well as other families of limited resources in the village of San Juan Cosala. In May and November, clothing is made available for these villagers. Clothes for the children are especially needed -- babies through teenagers.
Bringing clothing back across the border? Here's a letter that you can show if stopped. |
