Just Lending a Hand

Day 1

When I walked into the Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Texas, people were everywhere — kids playing and running around, mothers nursing babies, teenagers chatting with one another, men talking and visiting.

I had arranged to meet Sister Norma Pimentel, M.J., there. The executive director of the local Catholic Charities office, Sister Norma received Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal last year for her devoted work with immigrants, refugees and the poor in the Rio Grande Valley. In 2014, she opened the Humanitarian Respite Center to take care of people who had been jailed for crossing the border while seeking asylum in the United States, and who had then been released and dropped off at the bus station. They had no money, no food, no change of clothing and no way to reach relatives who could purchase them a bus ticket, enabling them to stay in the States. They had not bathed in days; they had nothing.

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