Sharon Proctor - El Comedor Advocate
April 15, 2016 by Gail Balden
On any given Tuesday, around noon, Sharon Proctor can be found making her way back from El Comedor in Nogales, Sonora to her car parked on the Arizona side of the border. Along the roadway she purchases two or three newspapers in Spanish although she doesn’t read the language. She buys ice cream from the ice cream vendor and mostly offers it to other Samaritans. Sometimes she buys a ukulele or a statue of the Virgen de Guadalupe. “I like to support street vendors,” she says.
No stranger to the Southern Arizona desert, Sharon was born and raised in Arizona. She does not consider her background to be one of social justice. She is involved with a Coeur d’Alene, Idaho soup kitchen where she now lives six months of the year. She is also on the Board of Restoration House, a women’s transitional housing facility used mostly by women who have just been released from jail.
Her focus on El Comedor in Nogales, Sonora really came about, she says, because of a Green Valley Samaritan meeting she attended and an El Comedor visit that occurred the next day. Sharon says that first trip to El Comedor changed her life. After listening to the heartbreaking stories of migrants torn away from their families, she felt compelled to do something. So every Tuesday on the weekly Samaritan trek to El Comedor, she helps feed migrants, offers a helping hand, a smile and listens to their stories. She has purchased a ton of daypacks for the migrants and made arrangements with retailers to get regular deliveries of tee shirts, jeans and other necessities. Even when in Idaho, she says the migrants are always on her mind, and she searches for ways to help them and mails packages of needed items to the Samaritans.
Regarding border issues, Sharon says she just wants people to know the truth about the human face of “immigration reform,” which often results in more hardship. Since joining the Samaritans, she feels she is doing something concrete to make a difference. El Comedor is where her heart resides. Sharon is a great example of Gandhi’s quote: “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
No stranger to the Southern Arizona desert, Sharon was born and raised in Arizona. She does not consider her background to be one of social justice. She is involved with a Coeur d’Alene, Idaho soup kitchen where she now lives six months of the year. She is also on the Board of Restoration House, a women’s transitional housing facility used mostly by women who have just been released from jail.
Her focus on El Comedor in Nogales, Sonora really came about, she says, because of a Green Valley Samaritan meeting she attended and an El Comedor visit that occurred the next day. Sharon says that first trip to El Comedor changed her life. After listening to the heartbreaking stories of migrants torn away from their families, she felt compelled to do something. So every Tuesday on the weekly Samaritan trek to El Comedor, she helps feed migrants, offers a helping hand, a smile and listens to their stories. She has purchased a ton of daypacks for the migrants and made arrangements with retailers to get regular deliveries of tee shirts, jeans and other necessities. Even when in Idaho, she says the migrants are always on her mind, and she searches for ways to help them and mails packages of needed items to the Samaritans.
Regarding border issues, Sharon says she just wants people to know the truth about the human face of “immigration reform,” which often results in more hardship. Since joining the Samaritans, she feels she is doing something concrete to make a difference. El Comedor is where her heart resides. Sharon is a great example of Gandhi’s quote: “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”