Very early Saturday morning, December 3, 2022, several members of the Rancho Bernardo Sunrise Rotary Club and the Rotary Club of Rancho Bernardo crossed the border caravanning to a small Colonia near Tecate, Mexico to build houses for two desperately poor families in need of homes.  Working with Project Mercy Baja (projectmercybaja.org), club volunteers built the two homes in one day. 
 
The Project Mercy crew had poured the foundation slabs and arranged for prefabricated building materials and paint to construct the houses as well as adjacent outhouses.  Although very basic and without running water or electricity, the houses are a marked improvement over the small cardboard and tin siding shacks they had been living in.  Each family owns the land and must make improvements to accommodate the new house and outhouse before work can begin. 
 
Both clubs also donated household goods and clothing for the families as well as some toys for the children.  We all agreed that it was a long, hard day filled with tasks that most of us hadn’t previously experienced, but when it came time to hand over the keys to the family who would be sleeping in a new home that night, it was all worth it.