06/02/2026
The month of June is significant in our Voices’ history. In the final days of May 2018, a small group of women gathered in the town park in Patagonia, AZ. We had formed our community group shortly after the Women’s March in January 2017 and had hosted a few events, but we were still finding our footing — still figuring out how to put our collective and varied knowledge, talents, and, let’s be honest, privilege, to best use in the unique part of the country where we lived: the Borderlands of Arizona and Mexico.
We had heard that a couple hundred people — mothers, children, unaccompanied minors — were waiting on the floor at the US port of entry to request asylum. At that time, most had come from the Northern Triangle of Central America: Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. Many had fled violence and extreme poverty, carrying with them the trauma of fleeing their homes and everything they knew and then all that had happened on the journey northward. They were exhausted, scared, hungry, and desperate.
So in those last days of May 2018, we decided to go help them. None of us had done anything like this before. We thought about what we would want if we were in their shoes. We asked friends to chip in, we chipped in ourselves, and on June 1st we took the $600 we had raised, went to Walmart in Nogales, AZ, bought supplies, and carted it all across the border. We walked the line and handed out everything from water, juice, and granola bars to diapers, baby wipes, and flip flops. That was the day we first met Pancho Olachea, a nurse who was there conducting medical checks.
That day set us on a steep learning curve, and by the end of that summer, our lives had changed. We had established our mission and incorporated as a nonprofit. This was at a time when seeking asylum wasn’t so politically charged. For us, it was - and is- a humanitarian mission. It’s about caring for people in desperate situations, meeting them in their darkest moments with compassion and a recognition of their humanity.
We want to take this moment to thank all our founding board members, past and present board members, volunteers, donors, and everyone who supported us then and continues to support us now.
We — and the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people we have been able to help over these last eight years — are eternally grateful. And our mission continues: to help those seeking safety, a better life for themselves and their children, a life where they can be with the people they love.
Here is a look back at some of those moments from that first summer.
You can support us in our ongoing efforts to help refugees and the newly deported here: https://www.voicesfromtheborder.net/support-us
