There’s a boarding school deep in the Copper Canyon in Mexico, at a place called Guaycavo.
It’s at the end of 22 switch backs down a mountain road, one which wouldn’t come near to the standards of B.C.’s ministry of transportation.
In the boarding school you’ll find about 80 children, or closer to 40 or 50 if you go during the harvest season when children can’t leave their homes.
For about two months if you found yourself there you would have come across two women from Kitimat, who took an extra few weeks from their work in Mexico to help out around the school.
Brenda Reay and Judy Carver have spent the past five years going to Mexico with a group from their church, the Mountain View Alliance. Reay has been each year for the past five while Judy has been there three times.
Usually for a two week stint, the pair were fortunate to have much longer this time.
Hearing that the poverty rate is remarkably high for the region, they brought money and supplies to the school and area for support.
“We’d go back in a heartbeat,” said Reay. “We got to meet some really neat people.”
She said the school is set up to allow the students to grow up being more self-sustaining.
“We worry about what we’re going to have, they worry about if they’re going to have something to eat,” she said.
Reay and Carver are a well of giving, and plan to return to Mexico.
“Last year when we came back, I wasn’t ready to come back,” said Carver. She said there was so much left to do last time she was down there that she actually felt bad to return to Canada.
On this last trip to the boarding school, they saw children who would walk for up to five hours to get to the school, where they would stay until the weekend.
Walking in the harsh environments is made even more challenging for the residents in the area due to the fact many had no footwear. Some wore rubber sandals, literally made from car tires.
Reay and Carver were able to go thanks to the generosity of many in the community.
With that in mind they plan to give back to the community for their support. On April 18 at 7 p.m. they will be hosting an evening where they will tell the whole story of what they saw in Mexico, along with a slideshow of their photos. That is taking place at the Mountain View Alliance Church.
It will be a hands on event for the people who decide to come by. They have a lot of items to show off that they brought back, and they’ll even hand out samples of Mexican candy.