From Project Mercy Baja Founder & President, Paula Claussen:

Project Mercy Baja ended our 2025 house building program on a high note.

On December 20 Team Leaders Mike, and Chris and Fritz, led builds for two families with incredibly great needs. Funded by the Shapira Foundation, Chris and Fritz built a home for Rosalba and Carlos and their two children Elizabeth and Cain.  They worked with our superb Mexican crew to give the family the Christmas present of a lifetime, a new home.  Just a few weeks previously their existing house had burned to the ground, and they lost all their possessions.

Life was already tough for them even before the fire, daughter Elizabeth is 14 but has a 6-year old’s mental capacity. She is a sweet, pretty and very friendly girl. It is sad to know she will mentally never grow up. Cain is a regular 8-year-old that loved to play with his cars. We were happy to replenish some of those cars for him and give them toys to start anew and bring beaming smiles to their faces. Project Mercy also gave them some basic household gifts and mom Rosalba cooked up a feast. Everyone sat together in cheerful companionship to eat.

A few miles away Mike and family and friends built a home for the Parral Carmona family.  This house was funded by the Tranont group who had built two other houses in October and had also funded this third home.  Tara Higbee leads the builds every year.  Project Mercy and single mother Katia, along with her three children, (as well as many other families) are forever grateful to her.

Katia’s only daughter Ruth, who is 9 years old, has acute degenerative Myopia of the eyes, she can only see clearly for a very short distance, and is seriously malnourished. Project Mercy arranged for her to see specialists for both problems. We hope and pray that she will improve and are happy to see that she finally has special glasses to see better and is able to drink a protein drink to help with her diet.
Volunteers took Katia on a spending spree to fill her new home with food and a few basic needs. 
Joy knew no bounds!  We give profound thanks to Tara and to Mike for giving this needy family a secure new home.

Project Mercy has many groups and individuals to thank for all that we have been able to accomplish in 2025, giving homes and hope to the above families were the icing on the cake.