SEQUIM — Judith Pasco has been at this for a good while. Still, she marvels at what people, regardless of borders, can do together.
The founder of the Sequim-based Mujeres de Maiz Opportunity Foundation, Pasco is preparing to celebrate this fact with a meal, a party and, of course, a fundraiser this Saturday evening.
Her fellow board members Molly Rivard and Steve Gilchrist, along with a cadre of fellow volunteers, are cooking a vegetarian Mexican dinner to mark both El Dia de los Muertos — the Day of the Dead — and the Mujeres foundation’s first decade of funding scholarships and enrichment programs for children and women in rural Chiapas, Mexico.
The evening includes a house-made dinner, a no-host bar with beer and wine, plus silent and live auctions of gifts from around the world, with doors opening at 5:30 p.m. at the Sequim Masonic Hall, 700 S. Fifth Ave.
Admission is a suggested $25 donation to the foundation.
It was in 2006 that Pasco and a group of women from Western Washington established the nonprofit group.
Sewing, weaving cooperative
They traveled to Chiapas, where they work with the Mujeres de Maiz en Resistencia, a sewing and weaving cooperative.
Its members, indigenous Maya women, chose the name — Spanish for women of corn in resistance — to signify their connection to the land and their resistance to oppression.
Back in Sequim, Pasco and her board of directors, which included teachers Martha Rudersdorf and Linda Finch as well as Rivard, started out by raising money to provide one scholarship to one young woman.
With donations from North Olympic Peninsula supporters, that woman went to school in Chiapas — while helping to organize workshops there on social justice issues and business skills.
In the years that followed, the Mujeres de Maiz Opportunity Foundation has provided more scholarships; this year, 17 girls and women are attending school thanks to those awards.
Board members and supporters have traveled to Chiapas, visiting the villages of Zinacantan, Ocosingo and Altamirano, where they help fund children’s programs, and to the city of San Cristobal de las Casas, where scholarship recipients attend high school and college.
The women of the Mujeres de Maiz sewing cooperative have gained access to eyeglasses, computer training — and a sense of solidarity with those Norteamericanas from the Olympic Peninsula.
Largest fundraiser of year
Saturday’s dinner and auction constitute the largest fundraiser of the year for Mujeres, which also hosts a Mexican breakfast in March and a garage sale in May.
The evening is also an observance of the Day of the Dead, Mexico’s autumn holiday honoring loved ones who have departed.
It’s a joyful time, and Pasco and crew do not skimp on food, music and high spirits.
Cort and Kia Armstrong, a pair of musicians well-known in Sequim, are the auctioneers this year; they will start out by singing and playing some humorous songs, possibly Johnny and June Carter Cash’s “Jackson” and Leroy Van Dyke’s “The Auctioneer.”
Then they will get to the bidding, on just a few selected live auction items: a hand-tooled basin from Michoacan, Mexico, for example, and a rug from Teotitlan del Valle, a town outside the Mexican city of Oaxaca.
Then there’s the silent auction of some 60 items.
Supporters in Sequim and Port Angeles have also contributed gifts: Lyell Fox sewed pillows bearing the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and artist Henning Erben donated an original painting.
“The auction is fabulous,” Kia said, adding that it’s one of her favorite such events on the Peninsula. She and Cort are donating their time because they know the Mujeres foundation well.
Its members “work from the ground up to empower women,” Kia said.
“It feels really good to be there” at the fundraiser, whether you come just for dinner or to shop the auction.
Pasco, for her part, saluted one of the older Mujeres scholarship students. She refers to her only as Viki, a mother of three from Ocosingo.
Starting college
With funding from the group, Viki finished high school and is now starting her university studies toward a computer science degree.
Pasco noted, too, that Viki and her daughter Gabriela developed the Ocosingo children’s program and continue to run it together.
She is a role model in her community, Pasco said, a woman who shows her neighbors what is possible.
To learn more about the foundation — scholarship recipients, annual reports, current projects and awards — visit www.MujeresdeMaizOF.org, phone 360-809-0393, email mujeres@olypen.com or write to Mujeres de Maiz Opportunity Foundation, P.O. Box 1954, Sequim, WA 98382.
And, Pasco promised, two 2016 projects will be announced at Saturday night’s dinner.
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
