Southeast of Taos, this scrappy nonprofit is helping a generation of grandparents raise their grandkids

PEÑASCO — Deep in the Sangre De Cristo Mountains, along the High Road to Taos, the tiny village of Peñasco has persisted for more than 200 years, yet its residents often feel overlooked by the outside world.

News interest is sporadic, and often negative, locals complain; arrival times for emergency services can be longer than a person can wait; and save for a post office, a regionally-famous café along the main drag and the local school district, there's few chances for employment in town, driving many to seek work elsewhere.

But for the last 40 years, there's been a bright spot many Peñasco residents credit for keeping those who reside full-time in this thousand-person hamlet together: MAS Comunidad, a nonprofit that has focused increasingly on providing essential services and supplies for grandparents who play a primary role in raising their grandkids.

"Since I worked here at the school, there've been a lot of grandparents raising grandkids," said Doris Gonzáles, who recently became the nonprofit's director. "So I've started to look for resources because a lot of them just take on the grandkids without any financial help."

Gonzáles spoke to the Journal inside the music room at Peñasco Independent School District on Dec. 10, during one of two monthly food drives run by MAS Comunidad and La Jicarita Food Bank, which is supplied by local farms and The Food Depot, a Santa Fe food bank serving nine northern New Mexico counties.

The music room was filled with a mini-mart's worth of groceries — boxed pastas, canned vegetables and bags of bread were stacked alongside hygiene products and diapers, which Gonzáles said are in high demand by a generation of grandparents in their second round of child rearing.

Bernadine Sanchez, a lifelong Peñasco resident, is one of them.

"They’ve helped me with all my grandkids, because I raised my grandkids," she said. "They've helped me a lot with the different things — with food, with money to pay my bills... support because I'm going to dialysis now."

Gonzáles estimated that MAS Comunidad serves roughly 37 families where grandparents or an aunt or an uncle are helping to raise children. According to The New Mexico Aging and Long-term Services Department, about 36,000 children were in kinship care statewide as of 2023.

The median income in Peñasco is low at around $38,750, according to census data, and some residents commute for work to places like Los Alamos National Laboratory, Española or Santa Fe, complicating efforts to raise kids at home.

“Even in the school district, the jobs have diminished,” Gonzáles said.

Beyond supporting grandparents, MAS Comunidad acts a “central hub” for Peñasco, she explained, serving as an anchor for partner nonprofits like La Jicarita, an after-school circus and arts program called Peñasco Theatre Collective, an elders creative workshop and a second-hand goods program.

The nonprofit’s central office is located along the High Road to Taos at The SPOT Office, where people can seek assistance applying for Medicaid, SNAP and other assistance. The office sometimes functions as a makeshift homeless shelter for local residents who find themselves with nowhere else to turn.

“Whatever the client walks in with, we just try to help them,” Gonzáles said.

Since taking on the director role this summer, Gonzáles and the MAS Comunidad board have been pursuing grants to keep the organization going, with a recent ask for $75,000 from Anchorum Health Foundation and a visit to the Roundhouse last year to hand out fliers.

"We're here for the community,"  Gonzáles said. "We do it for the passion that we have for the community, to better Peñasco and bring unity back to it."

John Miller is the Albuquerque Journal’s northern New Mexico correspondent. He can be reached at jmiller@abqjournal.com.