Public Health Support

Clean water became an especially important local resource when Covid-19 began spreading around the world.

The mission of Keep Loreto Magical staff and volunteers means that we enhance local agencies’ ecosystem protection with the ultimate goal of a healthy Sea of Cortez. Local people collaborate with us because our work increases the sustainability of their Pueblo Magico — its beauty and its economic basis in ecotourism. More essentially, protected watersheds yield clean drinking water, given a system for delivering that water from upland watersheds to their homes.

In 2020, Loreto’s water system was scarcely working, and Covid-19 increased the urgency of change. The activities of Keep Loreto Magical remained educational and indirect but addressed the critical needs that arose—and remain—among the people of Loreto municipality. So there was swift and skilled action from volunteers co-ordinated by staff member Cecilia Fischer.

The investments of time, skill, and goods from Keep Loreto Magical…

  • helped to make Loreto’s medical support systems safer and more responsive.*

  • enabled and modeled public health measures such as mask wearing, sheltering at home and social distancing

  • produced a professional-quality video demonstrating how pandemic safety measures dovetail with “buy locally” priorities.

  • organized free food distribution to vulnerable families.

A supermarket customer receives a donated mask from a community volunteer.

A supermarket customer receives a donated mask from a community volunteer.

With Cecilia Fischer’s help, a Loreto resident tries on a mask made by volunteer seamstresses in her community.

With Cecilia Fischer’s help, a Loreto resident tries on a mask made by volunteer seamstresses in her community.

A family takes free delivery of organic locally grown vegetables, herbs and fruits.

A family takes free delivery of organic locally grown vegetables, herbs and fruits.

In addition to Cecilia’s work efforts, the Keep Loreto Magical Foundation also contributed 24,000 pesos to identified needs. If you would like to support ongoing volunteer efforts financially, you can contribute online here, noting "for Loreto Covid-19" in the Comments section.

Since 2020, new or intensified activities by Keep Loreto Magical have helped greatly to soften the pandemic’s impact on the morale and economic wellbeing of Loretanos:

* Tanni Graichen, a long time Loreto Bay resident and supporter of the Keep Loreto Magical Foundation, led the volunteer effort to prepare the Loreto hospital for addressing COVID-19. Our Foundation program coordinator, Cecilia Fischer, served as her key deputy. Said Tanni, “Cecilia has worked tirelessly with the cleaning crew at the hospital, a critical role where her bilingual skills and her on-the-ground, get-things-done capabilities shine. She also is coordinating local Loreto seamstresses who are making masks for Loreto’s medical personnel.”