A parking lot next to offices and a coffee shop in downtown Tijuana bustled on a recent Sunday morning with volunteers building sandwiches assembly-line style.
Proyecto Tlali, a Tijuana nonprofit, was leading a food distribution effort for people living on the streets. The organization ran a social media campaign enticing people to like and share posts about the event by saying volunteers would make that many sandwiches to give out.
“It’s a way to give something to my Tijuana,” said Lupita Villanueva, who has volunteered with Proyecto Tlali since 2019.
A group of high school friends founded the organization in 2016. Perhaps as a result of this — and their resulting social media prowess — the volunteer crowd skewed younger than what I usually see at San Diego and Tijuana events.
Kasandra Valladolid is one of the co-founders. Valladolid said that her grandfather had often taken her to volunteer at casas hogares, or shelters and group homes for children, and after he died, she stopped volunteering for a couple of years.
“There was a part of me looking for him, and as a way to give more meaning to his absence, I preferred to transfer it into community support,” Valladolid said.
Her friends supported her decision to return to volunteer work by getting together to make rice and beans to distribute to people living on the street. Now, a decade later, Proyecto Tlali runs food distribution events twice a year as well as programs for children.
“It’s been a project that we didn’t expect,” Valladolid said. “We just wanted to contribute.”
RISE San Diego, an organization that focuses on growing urban leadership, recently nominated Valladolid for its Inclusive Leadership in Action awards, which honor local leaders in diversity, equity and inclusion.
On July 12, Proyecto Tlali, joined by other volunteer organizations including Dale Voz, set up rows of tables across the partially shaded parking lot with signs thanking the volunteers and orchestrating the sandwich-making stations.
By 10 a.m., the production line had started — volunteers grabbed slices of bread and slathered them with mayonnaise before passing them along for others to add deli meat, cheese, tomato and lettuce. At the end of the row, volunteers wrapped the sandwiches in foil and bagged them.
Then a volunteer walked them to the counting area, where a handful of volunteers wrote numbers on the sandwich bags to track how many the group had made. Around 11 a.m., they announced their first milestone — 500 sandwiches.
Soon after, someone hooked up a speaker, playing popular music ranging from La Chona to Bad Bunny.
Serenity Rodriguez, a 22-year-old paramedic student who was part of Dale Voz, bounced around filling in wherever she saw a need in the assembly line.
“Serving and helping has always been in my heart,” Rodriguez said in Spanish. “Society leaves them behind. We can give them visibility, give a hand and say, ‘You exist.’”
Around noon, Valladolid announced through a pink megaphone that more volunteers had come than she expected and that they had already run out of bread. She asked if people would be willing to donate so that the group could buy more bread and increase the final sandwich count. The volunteers had already made more than 2,400 sandwiches.
“It went so fast,” Michelle Flores said, sitting down on the parking lot curb to wait for more bread to arrive. She said volunteering gives her a sense of balance against the bad news that she hears all the time.
“It’s important to do good things, too,” Flores said.
Yarah Murguia, who grew up in Tijuana, said she found out about the event on Instagram.
“I think it’s important to do this because you’re conscious of what’s happening in your community,” Murguia said. “It’s good to be in a group and understand other situations.”
When volunteers walked up carrying bags of bread, the group got back to work. When they finished, they celebrated by making a group TikTok video.
In all, the group made and handed out more than 3,100 sandwiches.
They transitioned to the next part of the event, distributing the sandwiches to people living on the streets in downtown Tijuana and Zone Norte as well as to some of the migrant shelters in those neighborhoods.
Villanueva’s group wheeled sandwiches in a wagon along Avenida Negrete. Sometimes, they found people sleeping on the sidewalk and left a sandwich and a bottle of water tucked next to the person. They circled through a side street where many people were living in tents and called out friendly messages to rouse people out of the shelters to receive sandwiches.
Villanueva said sometimes it’s easy to feel angry at the government for not doing more to help its people, but she said she finds taking direct action more useful.
A little after 2 p.m., Villanueva’s group handed out their last sandwiches at a migrant shelter in Zona Norte and began the walk back to where they’d begun.
Proyecto Tlali is now gathering donations of makeup, clothing and hygiene products as part of a campaign to help women living on the street regain their self-confidence.
Thank you for reading. I’m open for tips, suggestions and feedback on Instagram @katemorrisseyjournalist and on Bluesky @bgirledukate.
In Other News
55 years: Friendship Park celebrated 55 years of existence this month, and one of its long-time protectors retired from his post, Alexandra Mendoza reported for The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Gun range: The San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted to stop allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection to use its gun range, Jenna Ramiscal reported for Daylight San Diego.
Detained coach: ICE detained a Padres minor league coach while he was traveling through El Paso for work, Gustavo Solis reported for KPBS.
World Series: Tijuana’s Little League team lost to Nicaragua and now must win in Tuesday’s game to continue in the competition, Mendoza reported for the Union-Tribune.
Foreign students: Tijuana schools are seeing fewer foreign students, Eduardo Jaramillo Castro reported for El Sol de Tijuana. The largest group of foreign students in the city are U.S. citizens.
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