Because I have been given much

Most visitors to Casa de Peregrinos will never meet Nancy Ryan.

They see volunteers loading food into carts and carrying boxes to waiting vehicles, staff members helping families navigate difficult circumstances and shelves stocked with groceries destined for kitchens across Doña Ana County.

What they probably won't see is the woman whose work often begins long before any food reaches a pantry shelf, sitting at a computer, studying funding priorities, crafting grant applications and searching for the resources that allow the organization to do what it does every day. That reality suits Ryan just fine.

After decades spent in nonprofit work, labor activism, public service and fundraising, she has grown comfortable with the idea that some of the most important work happens behind the scenes. The people distributing food may be the face of the mission, but someone has to make sure the lights stay on, the staff gets paid and the shelves stay stocked. For much of her professional life, Ryan discovered that was where she could make the greatest difference.

"I kind of learned a long time ago that I'm not an educator. I'm not a case manager," she said. “I don't have the patience for it. Direct client service is really not my gig. But this is.”

The path that eventually led her to Casa de Peregrinos began thousands of miles away and decades earlier, but it has always been guided by the same belief: that those who have been fortunate have a responsibility to help those who have not.

When Ryan and her husband retired and began searching for the place where they wanted to spend the next chapter of their lives, they approached the decision methodically. Vacation trips became scouting expeditions. They toured communities across the Southwest, often spending entire days with real estate agents, trying to imagine where they might fit. Then they arrived in Las Cruces.

The house they ultimately chose wasn't exactly what they had planned to buy. It had only recently come on the market. They were exhausted after a day of looking at properties. But something about the home, tucked into the desert where coyotes could still be heard at night, felt right. Before long, they were calling southern New Mexico home.

The move came with a promise. They weren't interested in simply retiring. They wanted to become part of their new community. Within a few months, they walked into Casa de Peregrinos and asked if there was anything they could do to help.

At first, they did what many volunteers do. They packed groceries. They worked alongside other volunteers. They got to know the organization from the ground level. Ryan was perfectly content doing that work until a conversation with Executive Director Lorenzo Alba revealed that the new volunteer pushing food carts carried a rather unusual skill set.

Alba remembers distinctly a conversation he had with this new volunteer. She casually mentioned that before retirement she had served as the lead fundraiser for a nonprofit AIDS organization in Washington state. At the time, Casa de Peregrinos was facing the departure of experienced grant writers who had been helping support the organization. Suddenly, the volunteer standing in front of him looked a little different.

A conversation became a committee assignment. A committee assignment became leadership. Before long, Ryan was guiding grant-writing efforts, serving on the board and helping secure funding that would support programs throughout the organization.

Over the years, Alba estimates that work has translated into millions of dollars in funding. But if grant writing has become Ryan's specialty, it is not because she was ever particularly interested in grants themselves.

What has always interested her are the people on the other side of the work.

Long before she arrived in Las Cruces, Ryan was a student at the University of California, Berkeley, where she became involved in the farm workers movement during the years of the grape and lettuce boycotts that transformed labor organizing in the United States. What began as a temporary commitment became nine years of traveling, organizing and advocating on behalf of workers whose voices often went unheard.

Later came work in Democratic politics and nonprofit organizations before she eventually spent nearly two decades focused on AIDS education and services. Though the causes changed, the people she encountered often faced remarkably similar challenges. Farm workers struggling to provide for their families. Individuals living with AIDS trying to access basic necessities. Children arriving at school without adequate nutrition.

Again and again, she found herself confronting the same reality. Food underlies everything. People cannot thrive when they are hungry. Children cannot learn when they are hungry. Families cannot move beyond crisis when they are worried about where their next meal will come from.

That understanding helps explain why Casa de Peregrinos felt so familiar.

"One of the issues that affected those constituencies was not having adequate nutritious food," Ryan said. "This kind of fundamental underlying issue of making sure people have food is critical in order for them to be able to move on and make something of their lives."

It also helps explain the philosophy that has shaped her approach to fundraising.

Ryan has never believed organizations should chase money simply because it is available. Over the years she has watched nonprofits reshape programs to fit funding opportunities, only to discover later that they have drifted away from the mission they were created to serve. Instead, she focuses on finding funders whose priorities already align with the organization's goals.

The work, she says, begins with listening. Every grantmaker is different. Every application asks different questions. Success comes from understanding what a funder values while remaining faithful to the organization's own purpose.

It sounds straightforward. In practice, it requires patience, discipline and an unusual ability to balance mission with opportunity.

Those are qualities that have made Ryan more than a grant writer at Casa de Peregrinos. They have made her a mentor.

Deputy Director Bianca Menchaca first met Ryan through Zoom before eventually getting to know her in person. What struck her almost immediately was the breadth of Ryan's knowledge. Whether the topic involved fundraising, nonprofit management, personnel issues or organizational strategy, Ryan seemed to have encountered it before.

"I want to be her when I grow up," Menchaca said.

The comment is partly affectionate and partly serious. For Menchaca, Ryan became one of the most influential mentors in her professional development, someone willing to answer questions, share experiences and help younger nonprofit leaders navigate challenges she had already faced. Alba describes a similar relationship, saying Ryan consistently pushed staff and leadership to stay focused on the mission above all else.

That influence may ultimately prove as important as any grant she has written.

The funding helps feed families today. The people she has mentored will help shape the organization long into the future.

Ryan tends to view both forms of service through the same lens. She speaks often about the opportunities she received throughout her life — an education that left her without debt, good health, financial stability and the simple luck of circumstances that opened doors for her.

Rather than seeing those things as accomplishments, she sees them as obligations. That belief has carried her through more than five decades of public service, from labor organizing and AIDS advocacy to a food pantry in southern New Mexico. The settings have changed. The challenges have changed. The methods have changed. The purpose never really has.

These days, arthritis makes it harder to do some of the physical volunteer work she once enjoyed. Packing food carts isn't quite as easy as it used to be. She serves in different ways now. She writes grants. She mentors staff. She helps the organization build the resources it needs to continue its work. In many ways, that feels like the perfect role for someone who has spent a lifetime helping others succeed.

Most visitors to Casa de Peregrinos will never know Nancy Ryan's name. They will simply see food on the shelves, programs operating and people willing to help when help is needed. Ryan would consider that enough. After all, the goal was never recognition.

It was always making sure someone else had what they needed.