Barb Lemmon - Driver, Searcher, Recorder
January 31, 2014 By Judith Whipple
Being there makes it move from the head to the heart."
One of five children, Barb grew up out-of-doors on Ohio’s Stambaugh Boy Scout Reservation where Dad was a caretaker. “It was heaven.” On Sunday drives, they studied maps and told him where to turn.
Barb grew up to love driving and camping, discovering new places and people, an indirect journey to Green Valley/Sahuarita Samaritans Searches. Their mission of saving migrants’ lives in the desert was on her internal GPS when she arrived in Green Valley in 2010, and she joined up quickly.
I like to be going, Barb said. In summer 2012, she led Searches every Wednesday, and remains a regular (her brother Mo Kling also goes out). She has scheduled the SAMs’ Search calendar for Mike Casey and Richard Calabro; served the Jesuit-run El Comedor, a dining hall for deported migrants, in Nogales, Sonora; and witnessed at Operation Streamline at the federal building in Tucson, the daily pro-forma trials of migrant detainees.
“It’s very important to put in an appearance at Streamline and on Searches, to be seen by the Border Patrol and the migrants. Letters and calls to Congress are vital, but to be out there and offer a humane face, somebody’s got to do it,” Barb says.
Working from 1992-on with an education center for North Americans in Cuernavaca, Mexico, Barb learned Spanish and met BorderLinks activist Rev. Delle McCormick. Delegates from churches and universities saw true poverty head-on, and the North American Free Trade Agreement and World Bank influence. Barb is a retired intensive care nurse, with home care and IV specialization on her resume, too. After raising a daughter and son, she hitched up a 21-ft. 1982 trailer to her pickup and set out from Colorado in 2009 to “see more.” Twice, in fact.
“My biggest concern is the people out there, risking death. I think about it when I wake up and when I go to bed.” Migrants are fortunate when Barb Lemmon and her crew drive up in the Samaritan Search vehicle.
One of five children, Barb grew up out-of-doors on Ohio’s Stambaugh Boy Scout Reservation where Dad was a caretaker. “It was heaven.” On Sunday drives, they studied maps and told him where to turn.
Barb grew up to love driving and camping, discovering new places and people, an indirect journey to Green Valley/Sahuarita Samaritans Searches. Their mission of saving migrants’ lives in the desert was on her internal GPS when she arrived in Green Valley in 2010, and she joined up quickly.
I like to be going, Barb said. In summer 2012, she led Searches every Wednesday, and remains a regular (her brother Mo Kling also goes out). She has scheduled the SAMs’ Search calendar for Mike Casey and Richard Calabro; served the Jesuit-run El Comedor, a dining hall for deported migrants, in Nogales, Sonora; and witnessed at Operation Streamline at the federal building in Tucson, the daily pro-forma trials of migrant detainees.
“It’s very important to put in an appearance at Streamline and on Searches, to be seen by the Border Patrol and the migrants. Letters and calls to Congress are vital, but to be out there and offer a humane face, somebody’s got to do it,” Barb says.
Working from 1992-on with an education center for North Americans in Cuernavaca, Mexico, Barb learned Spanish and met BorderLinks activist Rev. Delle McCormick. Delegates from churches and universities saw true poverty head-on, and the North American Free Trade Agreement and World Bank influence. Barb is a retired intensive care nurse, with home care and IV specialization on her resume, too. After raising a daughter and son, she hitched up a 21-ft. 1982 trailer to her pickup and set out from Colorado in 2009 to “see more.” Twice, in fact.
“My biggest concern is the people out there, risking death. I think about it when I wake up and when I go to bed.” Migrants are fortunate when Barb Lemmon and her crew drive up in the Samaritan Search vehicle.