Casa de Peregrinos expects to serve 500 to 600 families during the facility's first month, expanding food assistance in a border community with high poverty rates

Juan Corral, Southern New Mexico Journalism Collaborative

SUNLAND PARK - A new food pantry in Sunland Park is nearing completion – the city’s first-ever permanent, purpose-built food-assistance center.

Until now, the city’s largest food assistance effort has been twice-monthly mobile food pantry hours in local parking lots, as well as some church- and school-based efforts that reached smaller segments of the community.

The pantry is expected to be completed by the end of the year, significantly boosting access to emergency food assistance in a community known for having high rates of hunger. 

“I have been working with the construction team and the architect trying to get all the dates aligned, and right now their goal is to have it ready by November,” Lorenzo Alba Jr., executive director of Casa de Peregrinos Emergency Food Program, said during a recent tour of the new facility.

The building will open as sharply rising food and gas prices – as well as reduced food stamps, or SNAP, benefits – have taken a toll on New Mexico families this year.

The new Sunland Park Food Pantry is located at 3465 McNutt Road next to the Doña Ana Community College campus. 

Alba said within the first month of opening, Casa de Peregrinos plans to serve 500 to 600 families. And he expects that number to increase substantially.

“In the next year, year and a half, hopefully we’ll be serving 1,500 or 1,000 families,” he said. “That’s really the point; we can really make an impact in the southern part of the county. In this area specifically, the poverty levels are super high, so it will make a huge impact quickly.”

The city’s poverty level is at an alarming 22.4 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Mobile pantries face constraints

Residents in Sunland Park now access emergency food aid by visiting the Sunland Park Sports Complex to attend a mobile pantry hosted by a local food-assistance group. That organization, the Southern New Mexico Project, has capacity limits on the number of people it can serve in any given distribution event, meaning families in need of assistance might have to wait weeks or sometimes months for their next food basket.

The absence of a building and refrigeration capacity to store food means these mobile pantries must rely on truck deliveries from which the food is parceled out to residents, who often wait in long lines of cars. This can make it difficult for some residents to have a consistent source of food aid, a necessity for some homes. 

“Here, we’re in complete desert,” Alba said. “There is like one small grocery store; you have to drive to El Paso or Las Cruces or Anthony to go shop there. Having this food pantry here with high poverty levels is super important. I mean it is one of the major social determinants of health in this area.”

A 2024 planning meeting hosted by Casa de Peregrinos generated a strong turnout among Sunland Park residents, who asked questions and offered input about the proposed pantry.

Social determinants of health are factors – like whether a person has adequate transportation – that may not seem health-related at first glance but that can have significant impacts on people’s wellbeing.

New building expected to boost client numbers

Poverty rates are especially high in some neighborhoods. Alba added the Anapra neighborhood of the city sits at nearly a 40 percent poverty level. 

New infrastructure in the form of a building and refrigeration capacity is likely to boost access to food – and client numbers. Alba noted how the 2024 opening of a permanent food pantry in the tiny community of Hatch led to a sharp increase in the numbers of people seeking food assistance, as noted in a past article by the Southern New Mexico Journalism Collaborative.

“We had three mobile pantries out there before that one – about 175 families (served) out of all three of those mobile pantries,” he said. “Now that we opened up the small pantry, we’re serving nearly 600 families every single run.” 

At the moment in Sunland Park, there are two mobile food pantries that host distribution events twice a month at the Sunland Park Sports Complex, serving about 400 to 500 families per month, according to officials. A different nonprofit, Southern New Mexico Project, has long been in charge of those events as part of its community outreach efforts.

Millie Ramos, vice president of SNMP, said her organization and its volunteers will continue hosting the mobile food pantries, even once the permanent pantry is open to the public. The scale of operations might reduce, but food assistance will remain one of the top needs in the city – and so, one of the group’s focal points.

“For me, I ask: What is going to be helping the people the most?” she said. “If that is it, then that is what we’ll be doing.”

As for the new pantry, Ramos said she welcomes it.

“Having another place is going to be to the benefit of the people,” she said.

SNMP also focuses upon workforce development and education, work it will continue. 

Alba noted there’s more demand for food assistance than the mobile pantries can serve. He said SNMP will help supply volunteers for the new pantry.

Traffic under consideration

Alba hopes to build more food pantries throughout New Mexico.

Sunland Park Police Chief Kiri Daines said her department will assist with traffic control because the pantry might spark congestion on McNutt Road, already a busy route through the city.

“We have been actively supporting other food pantry efforts and are aware of the possible traffic issues that may arise,” she said. “We will work with Casa de Peregrinos and other community and city and county partners to establish the best pattern for traffic flow and distribution.”

Alba said traffic was a key consideration in the building plans. And it will feature a drive-through, allowing for residents to simply pick up the food and be on their way. 

“There’s enough room for two vehicles to fit side by side, we made it long enough for ten cars at a time,” he said. “This is so that we can get about ten cars out every 30 minutes.”

Daines said the pantry should help build a stronger community by alleviating hunger.

“When people have a secure food source, they can focus on other priorities,” she said.

Juan Corral is a journalist working with the Southern New Mexico Journalism Collaborative. SNMJC Editor Diana Alba Soular contributed to this report. She’s not related to Lorenzo Alba Jr. For more information, visit southNMnews.org or surNMnoticas.org.