{"id":74509,"date":"2019-09-27T17:01:09","date_gmt":"2019-09-27T23:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/local-couple-collecting-donations-for-asylum-seekers-along-u-s-mexico-border\/"},"modified":"2019-09-27T23:01:09","modified_gmt":"2019-09-27T23:01:09","slug":"local-couple-collecting-donations-for-asylum-seekers-along-u-s-mexico-border","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/local-couple-collecting-donations-for-asylum-seekers-along-u-s-mexico-border\/","title":{"rendered":"Local couple collecting donations for asylum-seekers along U.S.-Mexico border"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Jim
Jim Gage holds handmade teddy bears that will be given to refugees on the U.S.-Mexico border.<\/span>Courtesy of Susan Workman<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

An Aztec-area couple is gathering donations of warm clothes, blankets and basic toiletries for refugees along the U.S.-Mexico border. Susan Workman and Jim Gage will make their third trip to Las Cruces, New Mexico, at the end of October to deliver the contributions, along with handmade bears and dolls.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose donations make this possible. They\u2019re our lifeline,\u201d Workman said.<\/p>\n

Workman first became involved earlier this year after she saw a call online for stuffed animals to be sent to the border. After sending donations for a few months, the couple made their first visit in May to three shelters and a processing center in Las Cruces.<\/p>\n

Within an hour, they had handed out donations to over 200 children, Gage said. \u201cEverything had been taken from them. No one had given them anything,\u201d he said. \u201cIt tears your heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple coordinate their donations and border visits through a Las Cruces-based nurse, Freida Adams, who lived and worked in Venezuela for 20 years. Adams most recently worked with the New Mexico state health department from 2014 to 2018 before leaving to become a volunteer medic coordinator working with border shelters and processing centers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe situation is still very real,\u201d Adams said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of dying in the news but it\u2019s just as active as it has been.\u201d<\/p>\n

In July, the Trump administration issued a ruling that stripped asylum eligibility from refugees who had passed through another country deemed \u201csafe\u201d before entering the U.S. Since the policy reversal, Las Cruces, which serves as an over-flow city from El Paso, Texas, has seen a decrease in refugees, Adams said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not big numbers but we do still receive people,\u201d she said. But a court ruling challenging the Trump administration\u2019s decision could reverse the swing, she cautioned.<\/p>\n

Adams said she is now focusing on building a network between shelters in Juarez and resources in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Adams delivered two boxes of donated dolls and bears last week to Juarez, Mexico, where she estimates 1,400 asylum seekers are camped out at the end of the bridge separating the two countries. \u201cThat doll is the first thing I can do to help them to have hope again,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Workman and Gage said their efforts have spread organically through word-of-mouth and social media. They have even received donations from Georgia. \u201cIt has really mushroomed,\u201d Gage said.<\/p>\n

After meeting the couple, Alexis Saghie, a Durango resident, has planned her own visit to Las Cruces in mid-October. \u201cOften we realize what\u2019s going on in the rest of the world with refugees, but we don\u2019t realize that it\u2019s right in our backyard,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Saghie, a graduate student in humanitarian health from Johns Hopkins, said more people would donate if they knew how and where their contributions were going. \u201cAs Americans, we have a lot more than most people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

As winter approaches, Workman and Gage are collecting size-small winter coats, blankets and winter hats. Donations from the Durango area can be dropped off at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Durango on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Crazy Horse Salon and Kaiut Yoga Durango until Oct. 25.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, it\u2019s not charity. It\u2019s justice,\u201d Workman said.<\/p>\n

lweber@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018To me, it\u2019s not charity. It\u2019s justice\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":74510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1240,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-74509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-aztec","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74509"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=74509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}