The Difference a Mattress Makes

Written by Elizabeth Leighton

Having a bed where we can rest comfortably and wake up ready to start the day contributes to our daily successes, likely more than we are able to realize. However, many families in San Lucas and the surrounding communities, due to limited financial resources, find themselves sharing mattresses or sleeping on collected materials such as wooden sticks or tule, a plant that grows in Lake Atitlán as a substitute.

Edgar and his family are one of many households who have received a mattress from the San Lucas Mission Charity With Dignity Program. The Charity With Dignity Program’s main objective is to provide emergency assistance and other direct aid to community members in the greatest need. In 2025, 21 beds were gifted to families like Edgar’s who rely on this small but significant support.

Director Myvi Juárez and Assistant Director Ignacio Choguaj of the Charity with Dignity Program have an extensive process for finding the beneficiaries. Through coordination and communication with cocodes, or local community leaders, as well as direct community visits and observations, they are able to identify which families have the greatest need. Through this research, they found Edgar’s family.

While conducting home visits, Myvi and Ignacio have seen various sleeping situations that families have fashioned. One is called a petate which is made from braiding together a plant that grows in the lake called tule to make a mattress. Some people use nylon or a kind of tarp-like material. They fold it and on top of that place a blanket and this serves as their bed. Additionally, some people use beds made of horcones in which they use sticks or branches that they have gathered from the mountainside. On one occasion, Myvi and Ignacio observed three elderly people who had dug a hole in the ground and then put hot ashes from the fire in the hole to keep them warm, and then over that they would put a blanket and sleep on that.

Currently, there are ten individuals living in the Edgar’s family’s home in the community of Patulul. Edgar, his wife, their five children, Edgar’s uncle, his brother-in-law’s wife, and her son. Prior to receiving this mattress from the Charity Program, all the family shared a single bed, and due to limited space, two family members had to sleep on the dirt floor. Although each member of the family may not have their own bed, none of the members have to rest on the floor anymore.

Despite it having been almost a year since receiving this assistance, Edgar expressed a lot of gratitude for this support the Charity With Dignity Program provided, even getting emotional recounting when his family found out they would receive the mattress.

“We feel very satisfied and very relaxed, because it’s very different now. Before, two of us slept below on the floor. But now, on the mattress, it’s softer and more comfortable.” He continued, “We all feel happy because we now have a better bed,” Edgar shared.

Stable employment is hard to come by in rural Guatemala, and Edgar, father of five, does not have a steady job. However, he is able to find odd jobs around their community, whether it be on a construction site or helping to sow corn. Edgar’s diabetes coupled with scarce job opportunities make it difficult for him to support his large family. There is one son who is working, but otherwise Edgar’s work is the sole family’s income. Edgar additionally expressed, “We are getting ahead little by little. With the help of you all, we are able to improve [our lives]. So I thank you all for the help you are giving our family.”

The mattress donation program of the Charity with Dignity Program means a lot personally for Director Myvi Juárez. Myvi’s grandmother was a beneficiary of this program thirteen years ago. Myvi can vividly remember former Program Director Emi Tun visiting her grandmother’s home and asking how her grandmother was able to rest in such an uncomfortable sleeping situation. Myvi was deeply impacted by this visit and the later donation of the mattress. Myvi says that her grandmother took great care of that mattress and even passed away, two years ago, in that bed that was gifted to her by the Charity Program.

Now when Myvi goes to deliver mattresses, she sees her grandmother in the beneficiaries. And to this day, Myvi has that bed stored away at her house kept solely as a memory of her grandmother and how much that mattress meant to her.

Myvi says, “For me personally, delivering every assistance is a sign of love and dignity, because I also had to pass through those difficult stages of life.” Mattress gifting is something that Mission visitors can participate in. It can be a truly sobering and eye-opening experience.

Edgar takes pride in his children and the values that he has instilled in them. He says “I tell them to always give a ‘good morning’ and a ‘good afternoon’ and that they put in good effort at school and with their homework. Thanks be to God, they’ve listened to me and what I’ve told them because [the older ones] have now graduated.” Despite his family’s difficult financial and living situation, Edgar makes a point to motivate his children to give all they’ve got to their studies. And the mattress donation helps them along the way.

When asked what he would like to share with the donors, Edgar simply said “I ask God to bless them even more.”