Your Incredible Neighbors: Mexican villagers in need welcome Green Valley Samaritan

Used to be that Bill Phinney occasionally would drive from his home in Green Valley to the west coast of Mexico to do some fishing.

These days, he visits small villages outside of the Sonoran town of San Carlos at least once a month, but he may not even bait a hook. Instead, he stays busy delivering a variety of used clothing, linens, candy, small stuffed animals and tennis balls to Mexican villagers in need.

Phinney now regularly collects used tennis balls around Green Valley after discovering that these folks, especially the boys, love them.

He brings small stuffed animals and dolls for the girls, along with used playing cards and as many items of donated clothing and linens as his 1995 Ford pickup truck can hold.

When Phinney and his wife Sabra visit casino towns in Nevada, they’ll ask for used playing cards.

“I got three cases from one” casino, he points out.

The dolls Phinney hands out bring smiles to the young village girls’ faces, along with comments of “muy linda” and “que bonita” as the children hold these toys tightly.

Garnering the most attention, it seems, are the tennis balls.

Once, when Phinney tossed some into a Mexican school yard, many of the students ran out of class to get one, followed by their teachers.

He’s also seen grown men in a pickup in Mexico double back to a get a stray tennis ball he had thrown, and even the driver of an 18-wheeler stopped once to scoop up one.

“It’s magic,” Sabra Phinney notes.

The tennis balls have even kept Phinney from a traffic fine or two. When one police officer was ready to make him unload his truck and pay to secure a travel permit, the officer saw a supply of tennis balls in Phinney’s truck and asked, “You’re the tennis ball guy? Well, go ahead, buddy.”

Another officer ended up dismissing a fine he had ordered Phinney to pay, instead thanking him for delivering the donated items to a neighborhood close to the officer’s home. “You do a good job,” the officer told him.

The credit for these good deeds belongs to the Green Valley folks who donate so many of these goods, Phinney insists.

“So many people are so generous. I just take it down there,” he says, adding that he can always use more children’s clothing.

About 90 percent of the items — which come to Phinney laundered and folded — are from folks he golfs with at Canoa Hills and the employees there.

“Word got around and it kind of snowballed,” Phinney says, noting that three or four bags of items usually are left in his truck whenever he’s at the golf course.

He also buys and takes with him candy that goes on sale after Halloween, Christmas and other holidays.

Phinney, who moved to Green Valley from Oregon in 1988, says he speaks “survival Spanish,” just enough to get by south of the border.

His 30-year career with Safeway stores wound up with two years in Culiacan, Mexico, from 1985 to 1987.

After retirement, he and Sabra began visiting Mazatlan for a couple weeks each year and taking golf balls, some used clothing and at least one microwave oven to give away each time they drove there.

After they stopped the trips to Mazatlan, Phinney started fishing a few times a year in San Carlos, then began visiting the small, outlying villages along some rough, gravel roads.

For the past five or six years, he’s been making a trip there at least once a month.

“I’ve ruined a couple sets of tires” driving on those backcountry roads, he admits, and he even has told his wife he’s not going back again.

But seeing the happy faces of the Mexican villagers when he brings them the used items makes Phinney feel so good.

“They sometimes give me a round of applause,” he points out.

One of Phinney’s regular donors, Green Valley resident Louise Bonin, says “he has shown me pictures of where he takes (the items), and these people have nothing.”

The youngsters in the villages now recognize Phinney’s truck and come running when they see it, says Bonin, who works in the Canoa Hills pro shop.

“I just feel if he can spend his time and money going down there, I can help him,” says Bonin, who donates used clothing and more for Phinney to give away.

Phinney’s wife thinks her husband’s efforts are truly incredible.

“I know other people are apprehensive about him going down there,” Sabra Phinney says. “I feel God goes with him and watches over him.”

kwalenga@gvnews.com | 547-9739