Chapala Mayor Joaquin Huerta recently kicked off the local portion of Mexico’s annual Red Cross “Colecta,” a month-long drive for donations aimed at obtaining extra funds to help the local delegation maintain its emergency ambulance and clinic services in the area.
Travelers this month will also find representatives from other delegations collecting at toll-road booths, as well as at Costco cash registers and through Telmex’s matching program.
Norm Pifer, president of the Chapala Cruz Roja Delegation, points out that most of the money collected outside the Chapala area is earmarked for the Jalisco or national Red Cross.
Pifer urges local residents to make direct donations to the Chapala Delegation by “dropping their pesos into the white Colecta canisters offered by volunteers wearing official Cruz Roja uniforms or in canisters in local businesses.”
Says Pifer: “We hope that area residents will give all they can afford as we move into the slow activity season and as the board seeks alternate ways and means to reopen the Ajijic ambulance location.”
Another way to donate directly to the Chapala Red Cross is by making out a Mexican peso or U.S. dollar check to the organization. To learn how to correctly make out checks, donors can visit the Cruz Roja table at the Lake Chapala Society on weekdays from 10 a.m. until noon.
Pfifer stresses that the people wearing cream-colored uniforms with red stripes who hang around the Libramiento intersection year round are not collecting for, nor are associated with, the Chapala Cruz Roja.