Betty Weseman
Each Friday before Thanksgiving, Betty Weseman and her husband, Charles, head from their home in Pecos to a Santa Fe Albertsons store, where a haul of groceries is waiting for them: turkeys, potatoes, cranberry sauce, frozen pies and other goods.
The couple drive separate vehicles, a pickup and an SUV, because this load will make more than one meal — it’s enough to feed the residents of 32 homes at the Pecos Housing Authority.
Betty Weseman, 64, a retired vice president at the Pecos branch of Southwest Capital Bank, has been holding an annual fundraiser in the community for the past 16 years to raise money for the makings of a feast for each household of the public housing complex to cook up on Thanksgiving Day.
“I don’t think people who need help should feel any different than anyone else for the holiday,” Weseman said, speaking in a soft voice. She really doesn’t do a whole lot, she insisted. She just established a “turkey account” at Southwest Capital, where she deposits donations for the project.
Weseman keeps a wad of receipts from the last five years to help her develop an accurate fundraising goal. Last year’s grocery bill was $2,020, she said.
After she and her husband load up the groceries at Albertsons, they head straight to the complex in Pecos and back their vehicles into a maintenance garage that housing authority staff members have transformed into a meal kit assembly line.
Weseman, selected as one of The New Mexican’s 10 Who Made a Difference for 2018, grew up around Northern New Mexico. But she never thought much about Pecos until she and her husband moved to the village in 1999, and she fell in love with the community and its people. A few months later, she accepted a position at the bank. “It’s God’s little corner of the world,” she said. She wanted to give back to the community, she said, and the Thanksgiving tradition became part of that effort because she had lived in public housing for about a year when she was a teen.
She sees the tradition as a way to pay forward the support her own family received.
Ricardo Valenzuela, director of the Pecos Housing Authority, said Weseman has transformed Thanksgiving for residents. “She’s just a beautiful, giving person,” he said. While the Thanksgiving project is Weseman’s greatest pride, it’s not her only contribution to the village.
Before retiring from the bank in 2015, she planted a pine tree that became the community’s Christmas tree, and she helped start an annual Christmas party that is now run by the American Legion, a nonprofit veterans organization.
When the Pecos Business Association was founded in 2001, Weseman became a member. She has strived since then to increase awareness of Pecos and build interest in the community, both within the state and around the nation.
Since 2003, Weseman has been involved with the board of the Pecos Valley Medical Center and has been president of the board since 2015. The group has helped grow the community health center, aiming to not only provide medical services but also to develop outreach programs.
And in 1999, she was recognized as Woman of the Year by the now disbanded Pecos Valley Community Foundation.
“All this sounds like bragging; I don’t like that,” Weseman muttered after listing her accomplishments.
Charles Weseman said his wife, through her volunteer work — the grand gestures and the small deeds alike — “brought the community together. She’ll probably do anything for anybody.”
Eric Roybal, a friend of 15 years who nominated Betty Weseman for the 10 Who Made a Difference award, said she’s modest about the work she’s done for Pecos. Her efforts haven’t gone unnoticed. Through the years, Roybal said, Weseman has always stepped up to help the community with whatever she saw was needed — from something as small as hiring local businesses to trim bushes around the bank to bigger projects, such as the Pecos Valley Medical Center.
He wouldn’t be surprised if she were responsible for many other charitable deeds that no one knows about, he said.
“She’s just the epitome of community,” Roybal said. “She’s what we should all strive to be.”
When she isn’t busy working to enhance her village, Weseman enjoys reading at her home in Pecos, which is filled with the works of local artists, or going fishing with her husband.
She has two children and two grandchildren who live in New Mexico. During major holidays, she said, her home becomes the site of a festive buffet as the 30 or so members of her and her husband’s family gather for food and merriment.
Weseman, still known as Betty around the bank where she worked for 16 years, joked about how she earned each of her white hairs. To her, the work she does is common sense. “The village should take care of the village,” she said. “I really look forward to the stuff I do.”