Good neighbors
Imperial women collect goods to help federal workers
IMPERIAL — Seeing the effects the nearly four-week-long government shutdown has had on the livelihood of local families of federal workers forced Elizabeth Acosta to take action Thursday morning.
The lifelong Imperial Valley resident opened the garage to her family’s home and welcomed Valley residents to drop off any food, clothing or toiletry items to be donated to families of local furloughed federal employees in need of assistance.
“It’s been four weeks, and last week was their first pay check that they missed,” Acosta said Thursday. “These are families that one of caregivers of the home is the sole [breadwinner], and they’re sometimes families of five or six. The sad thing is that these families don’t even qualify for anything. I think right now there are programs, but I don’t know how long those take. The help needs to be now.”
Acosta teamed up with her friend Genevieve Blanchette and another mother who lives in the area to handle the workload of accepting and dropping off the donated items to families residing anywhere between Calexico and Calipatria.
The three women promoted their efforts online through social media and stated that any local families in need of items should reach out to them.
In the announcement, Acosta made it a point to state there would be “no judgment” toward families requesting aid.
“You might feel judged for not being prepared, but no one expects something like this to happen,” Acosta said. “There’s families that are struggling, and they haven’t said nothing, and they’re not going to say anything, but it should be said. They need to not be shy. I mean, it’s food; it’s not like they’re asking for beer. It’s not like they’re asking for anything else. It’s food. It’s a basic need, It’s essential. We’re the community. We’re here to help.”
The group of women specifically hoped to provide help to families of local Border Patrol officers and other federal workers in the same career field.
“They’re the ones that are usually helping, so why not? Someone needs to speak for them,” Acosta said. “They’re out there; they’re working, and they’re not getting paid. They could die today, and it’s just hard. No one takes care of them.”
To Acosta’s surprise, she received a number of inquiries from Border Patrol families asking how they could help with the cause, rather than asking for items. “I’ve had a couple of moms tell me, ‘I’m one of the affected families. Do you need help as far as time-wise? I could help you deliver,’” Acosta said.
A close view
Acosta’s home, located in the Paseo De Sol neighborhood, is surrounded mostly by federal employees and is just down the street from the El Centro Border Patrol station.
“There’s a lot (of Border Patrol) here in this community,” she said. “I haven’t heard anyone (in Border Patrol) complain, like, ‘I don’t want to go to work.’ They just get up like regular, and they go, and that’s it. And they’re not even getting paid, and they’re doing it like it was OK. They’re proud of it. They really are proud of it, and they should be.”
Acosta observed the effects of the shutdown can trickle down to the children of the affected families. She said students within the Imperial Unified School District are disciplined at the end of the year if they have a past due balance for school lunches.
As a parent with kids in the IUSD school system herself, Acosta recalled that one year her son was told to sit in the office rather than participate in the end-of-school-year activities because of past due lunch balance of $20.
“Here in Imperial, there’s no free lunches,” she said. “They don’t have free meals. A lot of the parents, they send the kids to school with lunch. But how are they going to be doing that when they don’t have a paycheck? What if this goes on further for these families that can’t pay? It’s not the kids’ fault. They need help. They can at least send their kids with lunches to school with the help that hopefully they get from here, or anywhere else.”
Acosta, who plans to leave her garage open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. each day until the shutdown ends, encourages local residents looking to donate or local families in need of help to contact her at (760) 879-3542.