The story behind the Migrant Community Campus and the community bringing it to life.
The comedor in our Migrant Outreach Center was full. On a warm evening in May, volunteers, staff, sisters, and migrants gathered around long tables at Kino Border Initiative for a special community dinner co-hosted by the Missionary Sisters of the Eucharist and Franciscan Sisters. Laughter drifted across the room as children darted between chairs and conversations unfolded in Spanish and English. The evening was a celebration, but it also offered a quiet glimpse into the many ways people experience Kino.
One table was occupied by a man who had been deported from the United States just two days earlier. As he reflected on his experience, he spoke with quiet gratitude about something many of us take for granted: a hot meal. After days of uncertainty, his immediate need for nourishment had been met.
Just a few tables away sat three families from Venezuela, Mexico, and Honduras. Their children ran between tables, laughing together like old friends. They, too, were grateful for the meal before them. But they had also come for something more—for friendship, recreation, and the sense of community they had cultivated over nearly two years of building life together in Nogales.
The contrast between these two tables captures something important about Kino today.
Since its founding, KBI has faithfully responded to migrants’ most immediate needs by providing meals, shelter, medical care, and other humanitarian assistance. Those needs remain as urgent as ever. At the same time, many of the people who come to Kino now spend months, or even years, in Nogales. They need more than food and shelter alone. They need places to heal, learn, build relationships, develop new skills, watch their children play, and imagine what comes next.
As the realities of migration have evolved, so too has KBI’s understanding of what accompaniment requires.
Growing Deeper, Not Wider
The scene in the comedor reflects a reality that KBI had already begun discerning several years earlier.
In 2021, KBI’s Board of Directors gathered with staff and migrants to reflect on the organization’s mission and vision for the future. Migration was changing, and so were the experiences of the people arriving in Nogales. As more migrants spent extended periods of time in the city, the board wrestled with an important question: What does faithful accompaniment look like in this moment? Should KBI expand beyond Nogales, or should it deepen its roots in the community where it had already been called to serve?
The answer was clear. Kino would grow deeper, not wider.
That discernment shaped KBI’s current 5-year Strategic Plan, introducing two guiding priorities: Holistic Accompaniment and Local Hospitality. Together, they reflected a broader understanding of what migrants need to flourish.
Holistic Accompaniment recognizes migrants as whole people—not only people with immediate needs, but people with hopes, talents, grief, faith, and dreams. While KBI remains committed to providing humanitarian assistance, holistic accompaniment also means creating opportunities for healing, learning, recreation, community, and spiritual care.
Local Hospitality reflects a similar conviction. Kino’s presence in Nogales is not simply a matter of geography; it is central to the organization’s identity. Rather than extending its reach into new locations, KBI chose to become more deeply rooted in the community it already calls home, co-creating hospitality alongside neighbors, migrants, and local partners.
As these priorities took shape, another question naturally emerged: If we are committed to Holistic Accompaniment and Local Hospitality, can our current space truly support that vision?
The answer wasn’t simply that Kino needed more space. It needed different kinds of space. Holistic Accompaniment requires room for children to play while parents attend workshops, meet with staff, or spend time in quiet reflection. It calls for spaces that foster recreation, healing, learning, and connection. At the same time, Local Hospitality invites the wider community into Kino’s work while ensuring the safety and dignity of the migrants we serve.
Those conversations planted the seeds of what would become the Migrant Community Campus.
Imagining the Future: The Vision Behind the Migrant Community Campus
Constructing the Migrant Community Campus is not simply about creating more space. It is about creating spaces that reflect the fullness of KBI’s mission.
To bring that vision to life, KBI acquired two acres of land adjacent to our Migrant Outreach Center in 2023. Rather than seeing the property as an opportunity to build more buildings, Kino saw an opportunity to imagine how its spaces could better embody accompaniment, hospitality, and human dignity for generations to come.
The campus is intentionally designed to support every dimension of KBI’s mission. Once constructed, it will include interconnected spaces filled with natural light, shaded patios, gathering areas, recreation spaces, places for quiet reflection, and flexible rooms for workshops, services, and community life. Every element is intended to foster relationships, strengthen community, and create environments where people can gather, heal, learn, rest, and belong.
For César, a migrant who was recently deported after living in the United States for more than thirty years, spaces like these represent far more than new buildings.
“Arriving in Nogales was something I never expected, and emotionally, it has been a very difficult journey. Little by little, I got to know Kino, and now it’s a place I come to often because I feel supported here. Knowing that this space will continue to grow and be able to help even more people like me gives me hope.”
Migration continues to evolve, and so do the needs of the people Kino accompanies. Rather than building for one particular moment in history, KBI is creating a campus that can grow and adapt alongside the community it serves. Flexible gathering spaces and multipurpose areas leave room for needs that have not yet emerged and possibilities that cannot yet be fully imagined. In that way, the Migrant Community Campus reflects KBI’s trust that God will continue revealing new ways to accompany migrants in the years ahead.
The campus is not the mission itself. It is a tool that will allow KBI to live out its mission more faithfully. It is the next faithful expression of Kino’s enduring commitment to accompaniment, hospitality, and Migration with Dignity.
Before a single building was designed, however, KBI began with a different question:
What do the people who will use this space actually want?
Designed With the Community
Rather than starting with blueprints, KBI began by asking the people who would use the space to imagine it. In 2024, Kino partnered with an architect specializing in social design who had extensive experience working alongside communities throughout Mexico. Instead of arriving with predetermined plans, the architect immersed himself in the Kino community, spending time with migrants, staff, volunteers, and neighbors to understand how the space in our Migrant Outreach Center was currently being used and how expanded space might better support the community in the future.
He was joined by a psychologist who facilitated workshops with migrants, children, and KBI staff, inviting them to imagine what this new place could become. Together, they explored questions such as: What makes a place feel like home? Where do you feel peace? What spaces help you feel connected to others?
Top two pictures are from staff workshop sessions. Bottom two photos are drawings by migrant children when asked what home means to them.
This collaborative process reflects the principles of placemaking—the idea that the people who will live, gather, work, and play in a space should help shape its design. Rather than designing a campus for the community, Kino chose to design it with the community.
Again and again, families returned to the importance of creating spaces where children could play safely, where neighbors could gather, and where people could find moments of peace and belonging. One migrant, Marta, shared her hopes for the future of the campus:
“I’m the mother of a young daughter and a three-month-old baby. It gives me hope to think that this new place will have spaces where children can play, spend time together, and feel safe. I’m also excited that my baby will grow up knowing a bigger Kino, with more opportunities for him, for other children, and for the families who come here looking for a place to start over.”
Those conversations shaped every aspect of the campus’s design. Plans now include child-centered recreation areas, outdoor gathering spaces, flexible rooms for workshops and services, quiet places for prayer and reflection, wellness areas, public art, and a Way of the Cross walking path that creates moments of reflection while buffering the sounds of the surrounding city. Every feature reflects a simple but powerful conviction: the people who will inhabit this space should also help imagine it.
That vision is already beginning to take shape. Using reserve funds, KBI secured the property, installed fencing to protect the site, and began activating the space through soccer matches, field days, carne asadas, and other community gatherings. Rather than waiting for construction to begin, Kino is already honoring the community’s vision by creating opportunities for connection on the land today.
In many ways, that is the spirit of the Migrant Community Campus. It is not simply a place being built for the community. It is a place already being shaped by the community—and one that will continue to grow alongside it.
Faithful Discernment Throughout the Process
Throughout this process, KBI has continued to ask the same question: Does this vision still reflect what our community needs most?
That question took on new urgency during the Board of Directors’ retreat in January 2025. As the new presidential administration prepared to take office in the U.S., uncertainty weighed heavily on migrant communities and the organizations that accompany them. Rather than simply moving forward with plans already in motion, KBI paused to discern whether the Migrant Community Campus remained the right investment for this moment.
The answer was a resounding yes.
If anything, the changing realities of migration reaffirmed the need for spaces rooted in accompaniment, hospitality, and community. While many aspects of the future remain uncertain, the Migrant Community Campus represents something KBI can faithfully build today—a place that will continue serving migrants with dignity no matter how migration policies evolve.
That conviction has also been affirmed by the community itself. Efraín, a migrant who has been part of the Kino community, has watched the vision for the Migrant Community Campus slowly take shape. As the project has moved forward, he says it has filled him with hope:
“Over the past few months, I’ve watched the construction move forward, and I’m excited to imagine what it will be like once it’s finished. It feels like my second home is growing. I never imagined there could be an even bigger space to welcome and support people like us. Thank you for continuing to think of those of us who arrive here looking for a new beginning.”
His hope reflects what KBI has heard again and again throughout this journey: the Migrant Community Campus is not simply a vision for the future. It is already becoming a source of hope in the present.
Donate Today to Build this Future Together
In 2023, KBI took a significant step toward making this vision a reality by purchasing the land that will become the future home of the Migrant Community Campus. With that milestone complete, the capital campaign is now focused on raising the remaining $3.6 million needed to bring the campus to life. Thanks to the extraordinary generosity of supporters, KBI has already raised $2,976,620 toward that goal, with gifts from a growing community of donors who believe in this vision.
At the beginning of this article, one man arrived at Kino seeking a hot meal after being deported just days before. A few tables away, three families gathered not only to eat, but to spend time together as a community they had built over months of shared life. The Migrant Community Campus exists because both experiences matter. It reflects KBI’s commitment to meeting immediate needs while creating spaces where healing, belonging, and hope can flourish.
As this vision becomes reality, we invite you to be part of the community making it possible. Together, we can create the Migrant Community Campus: a place where migrants are welcomed with dignity, children have room to play, families find spaces to heal, and hope continues to take root.
Will you help us reach our goal by making a gift today? Donate at our giving page.
If you’d like to learn more about the campaign, explore giving opportunities, or discuss how you can be part of this vision, we invite you to reach out to Kino’s Director of Development, Sara Ritchie, at sritchie@kinoborderinitiative.org. We’d love to talk with you about how your partnership can help shape the future of Kino Border Initiative.
Thank you for walking alongside us.
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