Water saves lives, costs money

It's time for an update on the water stations. As you may remember, the goal of the South Texas Human Rights Center was to establish 100 water stations in and around Brooks County. Well, the current count is 97 stations!

Thanks to the many volunteers over the past year who helped to place these stations over a 1,200-square-mile sector. Because of a lack of access to most of the land, which private ranchers own, most of the water stations are established along the few public county roads.

Establishing the stations is just the beginning. Now we aim to touch each water station weekly to make any repairs and to stock each station with life saving water.

We have also established means to track the water data. So for September 2015, 11 new stations were built, 245 gallons of water were taken and replaced from the barrels, and 69 gallons were delivered for barrels on ranch property. In August, five new stations were built, 236 gallons of water were taken and replaced from the barrels, and 60 gallons were delivered to rancher property to refill the barrels established inside ranches.

That is a lot of water. We do not monitor the stations with cameras so we do not know if it is always migrant border crossers who remove the water. Sometimes we find their old water containers inside our barrels and we can be sure that migrant border crossers removed the water. A few times we have heard testimony of a migrant border crosser that they indeed found the barrels. We believe that the water is making a big difference in keeping persons alive on their journey.

This was the "water" the migrant border crossers were carrying when they came across clean water in a water station.

Two recent volunteers, Aleyda and Laura, began a new practice by writing a spiritual message on the water bottles. I cannot imagine the feeling of not only finding water in an unexpected place in the desert, but also finding a message of hope and encouragement! Thank you Aleyda and Laura for suggesting this idea. In addition to helping with water stations, these two ladies–with their fluency in Spanish–have also helped with intake of missing persons reports. The two work in San Antonio full time with RAICES and give legal assistance to the unaccompanied children and pregnant women crossing the border.

Aleyda adds a message of hope on a water bottle.

We have also done some experimenting with solar powered strobe lights atop the water stations. They are great and can point out a water station location in the dark barren brush land. The cost of each is light is $30. Right now we do not have the funds to put these in place on our stations.

For God will never forget the needy. God loves you. / When you only see one pair of footprints, God is carrying you. / You are brave and strong. God is with you. You are already welcomed.

In addition, the money we receive specifically for the building and maintenance of water stations is now depleted. It costs more than $50 to build a station (without the strobe light) and water costs $0.78 per gallon. For September, $245 was spent to keep the water stations filled with six gallons each.

We are in need of donations for this cause of giving a cup of water to the thirsty. Thank you for considering a monthly gift. You can make a donation on our Web site. Or send a check to STHRC, 117 E. Miller St, Falfurrias, Texas 78355.

Thank you for your support and prayers.