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TIJUANA, Mexico — Laughter, shy smiles and curious eyes fill the front yard of La Tribu de Jesus children’s shelter when UCLA students from BruinHope arrive on the dusty, sunbaked fringes of metropolitan Tijuana.
Twice a quarter, BruinHope volunteers load up their vans with canned goods, water and other necessities before making the more than 100 mile drive to the shelter.
Despite the long drive and having to pass through one of the busiest border crossings in the world, BruinHope has been traveling to Tribu de Jesus since 2005.
“As you experience (volunteering), you feel like it comes from your heart,” said Lorena Ventura, a co-founder of BruinHope and a UCLA alumna. “For me, I just fell in love with these kids. Once I went, I felt like I couldn’t stop going.”
Ventura remembers visiting orphanages in Tijuana on humanitarian trips with her local church before coming to UCLA in 2004. With four other students, she founded BruinHope to provide support for children’s shelters.
BruinHope volunteers play soccer with the children, and from time to time the students give English lessons and teach arts and crafts.
“We (want to) be there to try to give (the kids) someone else to talk to, someone to look up to, someone to tell their feelings, to play with,” said Felisha Corona, current co-executive director of BruinHope and a UCLA alumna.
Tribu de Jesus was established in 2000 when founder Fernando Morales decided to give up a 13-year baseball career, a passion he had since he was 9 years old.
Morales said he made up his mind to live for something beyond the ballpark and founded the children’s shelter with his wife, Edith.
“When I played baseball, I would bring the kids in the street candy and toys because I earned money as an athlete, and I would convince them to go back to their houses at night (for safety),” Morales said. “In those moments, my heart was for them.”
Against a backdrop of pollution spewing from local maquiladoras, or factories, the Morales have run the shelter for 13 years through donations and volunteer support from organizations such as UCLA’s BruinHope.
The Moraleses said they work with seven other volunteers from the community to create an environment that will help the children overcome past hardships.
Many of the children at Tribu de Jesus have parents who are addicted to drugs, completely absent parents or a history of living on the street.
Some of older children at the center said they were grateful that the shelter helped get them off the streets.
“(The staff of Tribu) have helped me a lot to change my way of being because I used to be a troublemaker in the streets. I didn’t want to remember those days,” said 14-year-old Jonathan Martinez, in Spanish. He has lived at Tribu for six years.
Tribu does not receive municipal water, so the shelter has its own reservoir. When that runs out, the shelter must pay for water to be delivered. They also use the bottled water that the BruinHope volunteers bring when they visit.
This often complicates BruinHope’s initiatives to promote handwashing and oral hygiene with supplies of toothbrushes and toothpaste procured from UCLA’s Ashe Center.
Most of the time, the only forms of nutrition the children receive are rice and beans, Morales said.
The Moraleses said they still struggle to keep the children fed, clothed and educated, but the efforts of BruinHope and the clean water and canned goods the group brings have helped keep Tribu running over the years.
Some of BruinHope’s members have plans to address these problems in the future. Corona said she wants to build relationships with business firms to secure more funding for BruinHope programs.
“That’s why the house is sustained, because of (BruinHope) and the hand of God,” Morales said. “It is a blessing for (the children) because (BruinHope volunteers’) hearts are touched by the hand of God as well.”
Correction: Felisha Corona’s first name was misspelled.