Gallup Burrito Project organizes first annual fundraiser
By Molly Ann Howell
Managing Editor
Every Saturday the Gallup Burrito Project sets up shop outside the Redwood Lodge, located at 907 E. Hwy. 66. They give out burritos, both breakfast and regular, to unhoused people who stop by their tables each Saturday. In a previous Sun article the co-director of the Gallup Burrito Project Linda Farnes said they see over 200 people each Saturday.
Besides feeding the unhoused, the Burrito Project also makes sure unhoused people feel their best. Volunteers have offered haircuts and manicures, and the organization pays for two motel rooms each Saturday so that people can take a hot shower.
Feeding and helping the unhoused feel their best costs money, although the Gallup Burrito Project never asks their customers for anything. Instead, they rely on community donations.
With this in mind, the group decided they needed to organize a fundraiser. Thus, the First Annual Street Art Festival was born.
Alexis Lucero, the other co-director of the organization, said that they knew they wanted to do something artistic.
“We know for a fact that everybody is talented, and we know that our unhoused friends are talented as well,” she said. “Them being artists themselves is actually what inspired us to showcase art. We know that art alone can bring the community together, and we just thought it all fit in very well.”
The Gallup Burrito Project got the city’s permission to block off three public parking lots — the lower parking lot at the Courthouse Square, the Children’s Library’s parking lot, and the city’s parking lot in front of Camille’s Cafe at the intersection of Aztec Avenue and Second Street — for the weekend of Sept. 27 and 28th, and community members from all walks of live gathered to create chalk art creations.
Each organization that participated in the festival received their own blocked-off square of sidewalk to decorate however they wanted.
Lucero said she didn’t know how much the Gallup Burrito Project raised during the fundraiser, but she said they plan to put the event on again next year.
To learn more about the Gallup Burrito Project, email gallupburritoproject@gmail.com or visit their Facebook page.
