Mary Challis first visited San Miguel de Allende in the mid-eighties with a boyfriend. The relationship didn’t last but her love affair with San Miguel flourished and she stayed 15 years. 

Faith and religion have been constants in her life. While in San Miguel, Mary joined St. Paul’s Church, serving on the Vestry a couple of times. After every Sunday service, there is a “Coffee Hour.” Mary remembers poor children and their parents showing up to see if there was food left over. She thinks of that as the beginning of Feed the Hungry. She then heard of the need for a director. Mary volunteered and served in that position from the mid-eighties until 1989 or 1990. 

“I always get into things I know nothing about,” she said laughing, but became more serious as she added, “San Miguel was different then. You saw much more urban poverty than you do now.” 

Mary recalls working with Dean and Nancy Underwood, Martha and Bill Casselberry, I.J. Kuehn, and Sylvia Jessup – all names that are part of Feed the Hungry’s early history. “Robin Spencer, Nancy Underwood’s daughter, helped me. I did all the buying of food and I remember that I went out of town to a market to buy beans and rice in large quantities. I had a VW Vanagon so had plenty of room. Robin managed Feed the Hungry if I needed to go back to the States. She was very helpful.” 

 Robin and Mary also looked for food wherever they could get it. “I had a friend who owned a restaurant called Pepe’s Patio. I went there daily to pick up her soup, bread, and sometimes desserts and took it to the kitchens. Rice, beans, and tortillas were the staples. I took any donations of food.” Then they took the food, as Mary remembers, to three kitchens, all located near schools. “We found Mexican cooks and paid them a small amount.” 

St. Paul’s Church would give gifts to children at Christmas, first to the ones served by the kitchens.  Mary recalls that “parishioners gave me clothes and toys that we’d distribute to the children, but so many kids would show up that we would run out of gifts. The next year we made a list of our regular children at the feeding stations and called out the names to be sure that our regulars got a gift first. Then the others. I don’t know where they all came from. Word spreads fast!” 

The connection with the children has stayed with Mary longest. “I was with the program almost five years. Consequently the children got to know me quite well. Years later, I was walking down the street in San Miguel and heard a voice say, ‘Hola, Señora María, ¿Cómo está?’ I looked across the street to see a tall young man. I answered but was a bit bewildered. I asked him how he knew me and his reply was, ‘I remember you from when I was young and ate at the feeding station.’ I was pleased that he would know who I was after all those years. He had changed but I guess I had not – not so much anyway. It also happened to me in a restaurant. A young woman did the same thing to me. She remembered me from when she was a little girl and she was now working in restaurant. Those are blessings to me for which I am very thankful.”