Winter Clothing Drive 2019

Winter Clothing Drive 2019
 
Christmas came early for day laborers/ jornaleros receiving much-needed winter clothing on December 7th.  Thank you to all who generously donated clothes for the poor. Among the many you helped are:
 
Jose, from Honduras, who is 38 years old with a wife and two grade-school children.  His foot is not healing well from a fall and he cannot work because he cannot stand for long periods.  His wife cleans houses to pay rent and make ends meet. 
 
Another, lives in a basement with a futon, small refrigerator and hot plate so he can send money home to his mother in El Salvador for medical expenses.  He can only get work 2-3 days per week, so, there is no money left to buy warm clothes.
Luis, from Mexico, does gardening work with a landscaping company, but is laid off in winter. He then must find work as a day laborer to support his family. 
Jose, from El Salvador, is homeless, sometimes pooling money with other day laborers to rent a cheap motel room to survive the cold night, but this is not always possible. 
They leave their home countries because of poverty, unemployment, drug and gang violence, or because small family farms cannot compete with large subsidized industrial farms in the US. 
Many cannot read well because their free education went only through 5th grade. In the US they take jobs no one else will take.  They might work for two weeks and then not get paid (frightfully common). Their injuries on the job are not covered by workmen’s comp. Their employers are often “guys with a van” who have little more than the day laborers they hire and/or are unscrupulous. 
Seminarians work with Northside Latin Progress, which assists day laborers in Chicago’s Avondale, Logan Square and Hermosa neighborhoods.  Churches and their parishioners near these men have little more than the men.
Clothing was sorted and bagged by 20 seminarians. Three completely full cars provided winter clothing for 70 men. Additionally, two full cars brought clothes to the Franciscans of the Eucharist at Our Lady of Angels for the poor in West Humboldt Park. Finally, two more carloads will go to the homeless on Lower Wacker Drive in December and January.  In total, about 175 men, women and children will receive critically needed clothing in the seminary winter clothing drive.