Mother, son team up to help children who cross the border

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Beyond the politics of it, the children keep coming and everyday more of them crossing the border into Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. One local mother and her son have seen the crisis develop, and they want to help.

Single mother Zonia Flores is on a mission to help.

"Something simple just to let them know that somebody is thinking about them," said donation organizer Zonia Flores.

She sees the images of the tens of thousands of undocumented children crossing the border and doesn't consider the politics of it. She sees them as children in need.

"They're coming with nothing. They're being put in a position that it's not their fault," Zonia said.

So she and her 6-year-old son Roland are collecting odds and ends to take to those children. In fact, it was Roland's idea to start the small campaign.

"He said maybe we can do backpacks for these kids, maybe we can help them," said Zonia.

"They need cereal and cotton balls, band-aids, and backpacks," said Rolando.

What started as some text messages to friends and a post to Facebook has garnered piles of diapers, food, deodorant, blankets.

"They can clean themselves when they hurt themselves and when they get hungry they could eat," Rolando said.

"Once we get enough donations, backpacks with the items that we're looking for we want to travel down to Brownsville and take it to the Catholic charities center that's down there," said Zonia.

A mother and son, not thinking about the laws, or the economic burden, but rather the children themselves -- sent here with little if anything other than the clothes on their backs.

Zonia says she and her son were inspired by the movie "Little Red Wagon," which coincidentally stars Houstonian Chandler Canterbury as a young Floridian who collected backpacks to help homeless children.

Flores and her son will be collecting donations next weekend at Traders Village from noon to 4pm, if you're interested in contributing.