Your Incredible Neighbors: Green Valley Samaritan puts his faith into action

Harry Smith, a member of the Community Church of Green Valley, strongly believes in the Christian teaching of not turning one’s back on those in need.

That, along with more than 32 years as a firefighter and medic, have inspired him to be active with the Green Valley Samaritans, the Green Valley Fire Corps, his church and more.

The volunteer Samaritans’ work includes staffing once or twice a week an aid station in Nogales, just south of the Mexican border, to treat migrants being returned to that country by federal Border Patrol agents.

The Samaritans may see as many as 400 migrants a day for various contusions, sprains and strains, Smith says.

“We look for the ones who are limping, injured and the pregnant females,” Smith notes, adding that the Red Cross has an ambulance available at the aid station.

The Samaritans also have a road patrol that goes into the desert around Green Valley, Sahuarita, Amado, Elephant Head and Arivaca to give undocumented migrants food and water.

“We like to work with the Border Patrol when we can,” Smith says, and the Samaritans “understand what our legal boundaries are. It’s not against the law to give food and water. (However,) you don’t transport a migrant. We don’t do that,” he says.

Smith also asks migrants if they have had it and want him to call the Border Patrol for them.

In addition, the Samaritans check that migrants get food and water at Border Patrol detention stations, observe legal proceedings in court, and clean up trash migrants leave in the desert.

“We do our best. We do the best we can,” Smith says, admitting that “we only make a dent.”

He notes that when Samaritans are cleaning up the desert, they find family pictures and personal items.

“They’re humans ... and we don’t want to see people die in the desert,” he says.

These are mostly poor, desperate people who can’t earn a decent living in their own country, due in part to “what our government and the Mexican government did with NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) in 1994,” Smith says.

The immigration issue is controversial throughout this country, and the Samaritans, Smith says, are not out to change people’s minds, but to touch their hearts.

“We are an active humanitarian group that tries to get the word out to the community, to give people a better understanding of the situation. Dealing with women and children in the desert ... tears your heart out,” he says.

After spending more than three decades with the Binghamton Fire Department in New York, and serving as regional EMS chairman for the Susquehanna Regional Emergency Service Council, Smith retired as a fire captain and moved to Green Valley in November 2004 with Joyce, his wife of 26 years.

However, he admits that when it comes to that profession, “I can’t leave it alone,” so he serves as co-captain of the volunteer Green Valley Fire Corps, which assists the Green Valley Fire District with snake removal calls, home smoke detector checks and more.

“I love the Fire Corps,” Smith says, adding the GVFD “is second to none. It’s a wonderful fire department, highly trained in EMS and fire” fighting skills.

He also is a member of CERT—the Community Emergency Response Team— and is chairman of his church’s mission committee and teaches CPR and a bible group at the church.

He also belongs to Border Links, Humane Borders and No More Deaths, and has taken part in border conferences.

He and Joyce—who have three children and three grandchildren?—also sell Just Coffee from Mexico as part of their church’s mission project.

“It’s a small project to help create jobs in Mexico. It just scratches the surface, but it helps,” Smith says.

He notes that other mission projects include building churches in Mexico and going to the Nogales dump in Sonora, Mexico, to distribute food, water and clothing to the needy.

“It’s giving value back to society,” Smith says of his volunteer efforts.

When he’s out in the trenches, perhaps soaking the hurting feet of a migrant, “you see a smile now and then, and (hear) a ‘gracias.’ It warms your heart,” Smith says.

kwalenga@gvnews.com | 547-9739