Walking in Another’s Shoes

The trail can be a teacher, and by the act of walking, a robust group of 300 volunteers Saturday hoped to learn more.

Partly in memory of Martin Luther King Jr. and partly to address injustices that still exist, they walked more than four miles to raise money to combat poverty locally and abroad.

Walkers chanted slogans and prayers in English and Spanish as they waved a banner and colorful balloons for the Walk Out of Poverty, aiming to raise from $15,000 to $30,000 during the two-hour morning march around Fountain Valley’s Mile Square Regional Park.

The funds will support Concern America, a prominent international development and refugee aid group based in Santa Ana, and Taller San Jose, the Santa Ana-based job training and education workshop for young Latinos.

While not solely a commemoration of King’s slaying 30 years ago Saturday, organizers of the Walk Out of Poverty acknowledged their idealistic kinship with King.

“He had a dream, and we share that dream,” said Marianne Loewe, executive director of Concern America. “That dream is for a more just society.”

Concern America is a 25-year-old organization that sponsors volunteer doctors, nurses, teachers and others who help impoverished communities in Latin America, Africa and Asia sustain themselves through better health, public sanitation, technology and economic training.

“The focus is training--we think that’s much more important than relief,” Loewe said.

Concern America, funded by churches and foundations, has supported 180 volunteers over 25 years, each of whom invests at least two years in the organization’s work. It is estimated the programs created through their training of local leaders have improved conditions in 250 communities in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and elsewhere.

By the act of walking, volunteers Saturday hoped to better grasp how people in impoverished communities must walk long distances for water, cooking fuel and health needs, to wash clothes and find food.

“I know what it’s like, because in our village, the nearest water well was a mile away or more,” said Eli Tamayo, a woman in her 20s who moved to the United States from the state of Jalisco in Mexico when she was in her teens.

“The boys had to work in the fields with the parents--picking corn or sugar cane,” said Tamayo, who now works with Concern America. “So the girls had to walk to the well to get the water, with two big, heavy buckets. I did that from the time I was 6 or 7.”

Sergio Narez, 46, who immigrated to California from the Mexican state of Michoacan about 20 years ago, volunteered to take part in the Walk Out of Poverty after a Concern America presentation a few months ago to the Jovanes Para Cristo, a Latino youth church group, showed slides of village scenes that recalled his impoverished youth.

“It’s sad to see the ninos’ pictures,” said Narez, now married and the father of two, who is working as a quality control engineer.

“In our village, there were a lot of hungry children in the streets, with no food.”

Narez was among the day’s most prolific fund-raisers: He signed up 67 co-workers, friends and relatives to pledge from $1 to $15 each for his walk, more than $300 in all.