Diocese organizes border supply shipment

By DAWN PROSSER
Director of Communications
 
Through a collaborative effort, a semi-truck trailer was filled with 171,000 pre-prepared and freeze-dried meals along with eight pallets of clothing and supplies arrived July 19 in McAllen, Texas. The supplies were sent to the Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, operated through the Catholic Charities Office in the Rio Grande Valley (McAllen and Brownsville) in response to the border crisis.
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Partners

Partners in this project included Then Feed Just One (Richard Seivert) in Le Mars, the Christian Needs Center of Le Mars, Copper Coin Thrift of Le Mars, Helping Hands of Le Mars, Mary’s Choice of Sioux City, Schuster Trucking of Le Mars and St. Mary’s Church in Hawarden as well as the Diocese of Sioux City. Many of the meals were packaged by diocesan Catholic school students and staff through multiple Then Feed Just One packing events.

​A group of volunteers representing the entities that collaborated to make the border shipment possible gathered at Drico Products in LeMars to see the donations loaded onto the truck. Rosa Pallais and Ana Bulnes of the respite center were able to witness the loading event via FaceTime.

Bishop Walker Nickless loaded the final pallet onto the trailer, then blessed the contents which were shipped directly to the respite center to aid the people at the U.S./Mexico border. The diocese assisted with the majority of the cost to ship the goods to McAllen.
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“I could not be more pleased or impressed with the collaboration of so many entities that led to filling up this trailer for the people suffering at the U.S./Mexico border. Everyone involved from packaging the meals to donating supplies and clothing to packing the truck today – they show us how to truly care for their neighbors. Neighbors they will never meet. This is a beautiful example of caring for our brothers and sisters in need,” the bishop said.

Pallets of meals

Then Feed Just One board member Richard Seivert organized the gathering and was responsible for obtaining much of the clothing and other donated items. He said he saw the appeal for items to assist with the border crisis in Texas in the Diocese of Sioux City’s communications about the time that the border crisis was broadcast on national news.
The former Gehlen Catholic educator reached out to Bishop Nickless’ chief of staff, Deacon Mark Prosser, in order to offer pallets of the packaged food for the growing number of migrants at the border. TFJO had a successful year packaging meals in several regional schools and parishes and had just shipped 142,000 meals to Darfur.

He pointed out that TFJO had “about 800,000 meals in that warehouse and it doesn’t do any kid any good sitting in a warehouse.”

The meals shipped to Texas were packaged by Then Feed Just One and Mission Honduras volunteers at packing events at Gehlen Catholic School in Le Mars, Kuemper Catholic Schools in Carroll, Storm Lake St. Mary School, St. Elizabeth Seton School in Rapid City, South Dakota and St. Thomas More School in Rapid City, South Dakota. Some of the boxes of food included drawings and bilingual messages of care from the Catholic school students.
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“I wanted to get on board right away with 10 pallets, and I did. Mark and I thought it would be great to have the parishes and diocese fill the rest of the truck up with clothes and shoes and stuff. But as I found out real quick, we had a tremendous amount of stuff right here in Le Mars,” Seivert explained. 

Clothing and supplies

With Seivert’s Le Mars connections, he said he knew that the Christian Needs Center was closing its doors this year. Also, All Saints Parish and Gehlen Catholic were developing a thrift store to support the school, the Copper Coin.
“Now the Copper Coin isn’t even open yet. They don’t even have their building built, but they received all of the stuff from Christian Needs,” he explained, noting he approached both entities to see if they would be willing to donate the materials to the border project. “They said, ‘Oh, thank God,‘ because they have no place to store this stuff and weren’t going to have this building built for six months to a year.”

Deacon Prosser said that the border supplies project exceeded his and the bishop’s expectations and credited the TFJO board member for ensuring the success in assisting the people at the border.

“I applaud the work of Richard Seivert. He’s been a godsend in this process – very organized and very experienced. The bishop really appreciates that,” the deacon said.
Deacon Prosser said when the bishop first indicated he wanted to provide assistance at the border, they would not have predicted being able to ship such a large number of meals and pallets of supplies and clothing.
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When the truck arrived in McAllen a week following the packing, the respite center arranged for volunteers to unload the truck, including some of the refugees at the center. The unloading was done by hand – no equipment assisting the workers – and took two hours. Seivert received a video of the unloading from the center staff so that he could see the project’s completion.

Future collaboration

Seivert and Prosser both indicated they would like to make the shipment of supplies an annual collaboration to assist those in need.

“We would anticipate the bishop working through his Multicultural Ministries Office and his senior advisors would continue these types of initiatives,” the deacon said.
In the meantime, Deacon Prosser noted that those who want to help can go online to catholiccharitiesrgv.org/donations to give cash or donate via an Amazon wish list.
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“These folks (at the respite center) are doing incredible work serving their brothers and sisters and welcoming the stranger and any resources we can provide to them are greatly appreciated,” the deacon pointed out.
  

From the July 27, 2023 edition of The Lumen

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Border supply sendoff photos

Richard Seivert demonstrates how Then Feed Just One food packaging works to Bishop Nickless. 

Bishop Nickless as the border supply shipment partners watch one of the pallets of food get loaded onto the truck.

Unloading supplies at the Humanitarian  Respite Center in McAllen, Texas.