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City honors Casa de Peregrinos; Audrey Nelson Community Development Achievement Award recognizes food‑security project
Summary
City officials and Casa de Peregrinos leaders accepted the 2025 Audrey Nelson Community Development Achievement Award on Feb. 18 for the organization's expanded facility, funded in part by Community Development Block Grant dollars and state capital outlay.
City officials and representatives of Casa de Peregrinos accepted the 2025 Audrey Nelson Community Development Achievement Award on Feb. 18, recognizing the organization’s food‑distribution expansion and the city’s role in funding and partnership.
Housing and Neighborhood Services staff said the award, presented by the National Community Development Association, recognized innovative use of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds in a multi‑partner project. Staff said the city supported construction of a new 13,000‑square‑foot facility that opened in August 2023 and tripled Casa de Peregrinos’ space, enabling drive‑up distribution, a demonstration kitchen and shared community spaces.
Sonia Jamila, board chair of Casa de Peregrinos, thanked the city, Dona Ana County and state legislators for support. Staff and board remarks repeated project figures presented by the city: the organization previously operated from a roughly 4,000‑square‑foot facility, distributed more than 4.7 million pounds of food annually by 2020, and the expanded facility has served 14% more clients with nearly 1,000,000 additional pounds of food distributed in the most recent year. City staff said the project included $3,900,000 from the New Mexico State Legislature and $3,750,000 including $350,000 in Community Development Block Grant funds (figures shown in staff materials).
The mayor and council recognized the collaboration among Casa de Peregrinos, city neighborhood services, public works and the Community of Hope campus partners. Casa de Peregrinos’ board and volunteers described the facility as a “lifeline” for residents and credited the expanded space with reducing food waste and expanding access to nutrition education.
Why it matters: The award highlights a locally executed project that combined state capital outlay and federal CDBG funds with municipal partnership to expand emergency food infrastructure in Dona Ana County.
