Donations provide hot, fresh-cooked meals

This girl is crying because she is tired and hungry

My dear friend Kelly Overton inspires me every day. He uprooted his entire life and has been living on the Mexican border for more than a year helping refugees in need. We blogged about Kelly and Border Kindness last Thanksgiving, as you may remember. Border Kindness is on the ground at the border EVERY DAY helping refugees in need.

Migrant families with children continue to arrive at the border every day seeking asylum. The children are hungry, tired, and their families have little in the way of resources. Detention facilities along the border are modern-day concentration camps. Children are dying in U.S. custody. The situation there is dire.

Border Kindness provides food, medicine, clothes, shoes, and more for asylum seekers in need. They need your help to continue their great work, and every dollar donated goes directly to helping refugee families. 

To highlight just one story, Border Kindness has been working diligently to 5-year-old Rodrigo and his family. In March, Rodrigo and his family were living in dire poverty - they lived in a vacant home without water or electricity, or adequate food and clothing. The family’s three children each had/have specific and serious health needs - for Rodrigo it was a horrific, life-threatening dental problem that kept him sick and weak from infection.

Thanks to the efforts of Border Kindness and its volunteers, this family now has warm clothing, a home with electricity and water, a refrigerator stocked with healthy food, clothes, shoes, and even school supplies - things that we take for granted!

Rodrigo has already had a root canal, four teeth extracted, crowns on his teeth, and is about the bravest 5-year-old in the world. His 14-month-old sister and 10-year-old brother have also received medical care. Thanks to people who have donated and continue to support Rodrigo and his family, Rodrigo’s extensive dental work continues - and hopefully will be completed before he returns to school during late summer!

Can you help?

Most needed items include MONEY (food, fans, water, medicine, emergency travel), DIAPERS, FORMULA, STUFFED ANIMALS & DOLLS (small to medium size - children can’t take large items with them as they travel), toothbrushes, toothpaste, children’s SHOES and sandals (all sizes), large contractor strength garbage bags, children’s backpacks, children’s and adolescent underwear & socks, and tampons/pads.

Border Kindness accepts donations of formula, diapers, shoes, toys and unopened personal care items for children; however, by far the most efficient method of helping is by making a financial donation. Storing and then transporting items into Mexico is a resource-consuming process. In order to maximize time and donations, Border Kindness prefers to collect financial donations and then purchase needed items and food on the Mexican side of the border.


Learn more at borderkindness.org or follow them on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter for updates.

Press on Border Kindness and Kelly Overton:

"Heat And Violence Pose Twin Threats For Asylum-Seekers Waiting At Border," Kaiser Health News, May 2019

"USA-Mexico: 'On the border of a time brewing bomb'," AllInfo, May 2019

"Asylum seekers forced to ‘remain in’ Mexicali face long journey to court hearings," UnitedWeStay, May 2019

"Migrants Wait In Mexicali," NPR interview, April 2019

"After separation at the border months ago, some migrant families tearfully reunite," LA Times, April 2019

"'Border Kindness,' activistas ayudan a inmigrantes en la frontera entre Mexicali y Caléxico," Excélsior, March 2019