SAN ANTONIO — A San Antonio artist has found an imaginative way to support asylum seekers in the community by turning an old church bus into a mural and a library.
In San Antonio’s Southtown neighborhood, tucked away in the parking lot of the Mennonite Church, is a colorful splash of comfort and compassion.
“We want it to be a colorful space that reflects just the true spirit of San Antonio and the true spirit of our community,” said Pastor Katie Best-Richmond, who runs the space along two trailers, Café Cotidiano and Las Catrachitas, that serve coffee and food.
“We started with a coffee trailer where all the proceeds go to families seeking asylum,” Best-Richmond said. “And as we’re started developing this space with all of these different families and people from the community, we had local artists reaching out and seeing if they could help participate.”
One of those artists was Regina Moya.
“And we had this old, broken down bus,” Best-Richmond said. “She saw it and realized that she could transform it into something incredible.”
She was looking for a volunteer project for her son, Manuel Fernandez.
“I liked it very much,” said Fernandez. “It felt good to help others.”
What started as a family project turned into something much bigger. As more and more volunteers joined the effort.
“This project awakened kindness in the whole community and people were just willing to work for free just because they knew that they could help others through art and through having fun.”
Moya is an immigrant herself, having moved to San Antonio from Mexico City. The thought of helping asylum seekers inspired her to turn the bus into La Peregrina: a feminine version of the Spanish word for pilgrim.
Moya said the name came about by accident. As they were painting, someone pointed out that most of the faces were women.
“I guess that’s the feminist side of me coming out,” she said.
“She’s certainly very passionate,” said Nicolas Sandoval, one of the volunteers working on the bus she dedicated a lot of resources to making this project happen.”
Sandoval said that, as the son of immigrants himself, the project spoke to him.
“My family didn’t have any trouble, but I know that a lot of families do,” he said.
Like the people who made it, the bus is a storyteller inside and out. Migratory monarch butterflies accompany faces representing asylum seekers from all over the world. And on the inside: a library filled with inspirational stories.
Moya feels the bus is a fitting addition to an inspirational space.
“It’s just not going to get a cup of coffee anywhere else,” she said. “It’s about helping others and that just feels different.”
