Casa de Peregrinos held their 8th annual hunger strike to help raise money for their food pantry and awareness about food insecurity.
35 hunger strikers ranging from city council members to local influencers participated in the strike, going without food for 24 hours.
Marco Olvera, Director of Development with Casa de Peregrinos, said that their goal is to raise $25,000 to help provide food to the community.
“About 18,000 people have lost the SNAP program here in New Mexico so we have personally seen the rise in children from working class families. We have seen them a lot. We have seen our lines here at the food pantry get longer, we see a lot of veterans, a lot of seniors so we are just seeing the effects of what is happening,” Olvera said.
First year hunger striker Meggin Haver said that she was motivated to participate this year after her work at Casa de Peregrinos and her experiences growing up.
“I grew up very poor. We grew up on chicken and rice. That's pretty much all I grew up on on a small island so we shared food with everybody if we had a little bit of something. We shared it with our neighbors, we shared it with our friends, we shared it with everybody. Doing this, it feels like I am doing a little bit of something to help. I am just a little person in this big cog. I am just a cog in the machine trying to help,” Haver said.
Haver said that some of the toughest parts of her day included cooking for her three kids when she could not eat but also said this strike has helped put food insecurity into a better perspective.
“24 hours is nothing compared to those people who are going more than 24 hours without eating because they don't have the resources that we have here,” Haver said.
Ultimately, Olvera said that volunteers like Haver help make their mission possible and that more help is always welcome.
“We are really in need of obviously monetary donations but the time as well. We are looking for volunteers. The hunger strikers are volunteers themselves so people who are willing to say you know what, I am going to put aside my personal needs for the needs of others, that is what we are looking for, people who are looking to do good and want to do good here in the community and want to have a positive impact in our community. Everyone is welcome,” Olvera said.
