Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would urge people to walk in the light of creative altruism rather than the darkness of destructive selfishness. Southwestern College students Natalia and Felipe Ramirez have found the light.
Every Saturday the Ramirez siblings and family members take to the streets of downtown San Diego to feed the homeless. They buy all the food and cook for about 150 people a week. They call it a responsibility.
“We don’t do it because we want to give back,” said Natalia Ramirez. “We do it because we feel it is an obligation.”
Padre Hurtado, a Chilean Jesuit priest, is one of the family’s biggest influences, according to Felipe. “Dar hasta que duela” (Give until it hurts) is an Hurtado axiom the Ramirez family lives by. Originally from Santiago, Chile, the Ramirez family is finding its nitch in San Diego County.
What started as an Easter outing for the family of five has become a healthy addiction. Since April the family has been delivering lunches to San Diego homeless every Saturday. They have gone from pre-packing ham sandwiches to filling foam cups with spaghetti and marinara sauce, all cooked from scratch.
At first, excursions were unplanned.
“We went downtown, randomly stopping whenever we saw a homeless person and just gave them food,” said Natalia.
On the second trip they were already recognized by many of the people they fed. Seven months later, they are now warmly greeted with applause and cries of, “The noodle people are here!”
Dedication fuels the family on long Saturdays.
“Every week we come back empty handed,” said Felipe Ramirez, “but with our souls filled with happiness.”
He said the volunteering has changed him in so many ways. A 19-year-old pre-med and psychology major, Felipe has given up his relaxing weekends. Times have changed but he has no regrets.
“That was our old lives,” he said. “And to be honest, I don’t miss it a bit.”
Though they do not do it for the praise or attention, the Ramirez family is getting back a lot of love. On their mother’s birthday many of the people they feed pitched in to give her a chocolate gift box and card.
“It was very emotional,” said Natalia. “I don’t know how they even knew it was her birthday.”
Natalia said one of the men put his hand in his pocket and took everything out and gave it to her mother. He only had 10 cents and she was very moved by the gesture.
“That was very emotional and impressive because they don’t have anything,” Natalia said. “Since they love my mom so much, that they would just give everything they have to her.”
Many Ramirez family friends and supporters give their time to help on the weekends.
Southwestern’s Psi Beta Honor Society has members who help cook and deliver food. Psi Beta also hosted a fund raiser to support the Ramirez family operation.
Psi Beta President Brianda Gumbs, 21, a psychology major, said the bake sale raised $118 and they hope to do it again next semester. Money raised helped feed 140 people one night.
Gumbs said she wishes more people would get involved.
“It’s a very different experience once you go out there,” she said. “We all know there are homeless people, but you definitely feel something differently when you go down there. When you’re home you are just thankful for everything you have.”
The experience gave her a new perspective on her own life and she said it cleared up some assumptions she has heard about the homeless.
“I didn’t know what to expect when I went down there,” said Gumbs. “A lot of times people have this kind of mentality that people are going to be kind of aggressive or mean, but when we went down there everybody that I approached was very kind. Even if they declined it they were very thankful we offered them a warm meal.”
Natalia Ramirez finds time in her schedule as a pre-med student, president of American Medical Student Association, Inter-Club Council representative of the Psi Beta Honor Society and part-time tutor to spend her Saturdays cooking and delivering food to the homeless. She said even the smallest help is huge.
“The cooking is not much,” she said. “But the packing is kind of hectic. We have to be fast so that the food doesn’t get sticky or cold. There’s a lot of running around.”
Food and materials cost between $60-$100 a week, she said, and supporters often donate through Facebook.
“Since we’re not (a tax-exempt) organization, it’s hard for us to ask companies for donations because they might not believe us or think we’ll use the money for something else,” said Natalia.
Need is everywhere, she said.
“Everywhere we go, we find people. We want to get to everyone there first before moving on, but we haven’t been able to because every week there are more people.”
