comunidad para baja california

Two massive trailers filled with desks, chairs, tables and bookcases rolled out of Blossom Hill School in Los Gatos on July 6, headed for Mexicali. Donated by the Los Gatos Unified School District, the furniture will part of a complete refurbishment of the Nativo schools of Baja, with the remaining material going to the schools of Mexicali and Ensenada.

The project began in 2004, when the construction of new schools in Los Gatos began. Then Superintendent Mary Ann Park (now a Board member of Comunidad) approved the donation of the Blossom Hill furniture to Comunidad. The organization’s Director of Transportation, Bill Rush, took it from there. Working with Jim Silva’s LGUSD’s head of facilities and Karen Miller, principal of Blossom Hill, Bill organized a group of volunteers to disassemble, move, and load over 400 desks, 600 chairs and 75 tables. Led by super-volunteer Mike Lambert, the group worked for three days under a blazing sun. But on July 6 the trucks rolled to Mexicali, where they were met by Horacio Moncada, Comunidad’s sole Mexico-based employee, and Professora Lourdes Oliva, who facilitated the customs and distribution process for the Mexican government. The trucks were unloaded in 115 degree heat, with temperatures inside the trailers exceeding 130 degrees. But on Monday, July 9, they were transported to San Antonio Necua, the central distribution point for all the tribes.

As part of Comunidad’s focus on intercultural exchange, Blossom Hill students, under the direction of Pamela Pearson, Comunidad’s Escuela a Escuela (school to school) director, wrote letters in Spanish to their desks’ new owners. The letters will then be taped to the inside of the desks, to be opened in September when school resumes.

Special thanks go to Bill Rush for coordinating a complicated mix of schedules, legal restrictions, documents and groups of volunteers to pull this off. Also to the truckers who volunteered their services to transport the furniture and to all the volunteers who braved the heat to help on both ends of the loading process.

Photos of the new classroom furniture in place will be available on this website in the fall.