Las Cruces third-grader collecting desserts to distribute to homeless for Thanksgiving

LAS CRUCES – A J. Paul Taylor Academy third-grader is sweetening Thanksgiving dinners this year with a dessert drive that will accompany meals for those in need.

AJ Narvaez, 9, has a passion for helping people. His mother, Robyn Rehbein, said the drive originated as part of a second-grade passion project. AJ chose the subject of poverty for his project and wanted to help those in need.

“I thought of people who have not that much money and I would give that to them. I would give them all they needed like money, a home, food,” AJ said.

Rehbein, a volunteer with the Red Cross, explained that her son teamed up with a fellow Red Cross volunteer in town who feeds those in need in the community. The volunteer, who is shy and didn’t want to provide his name, is a disabled veteran who formerly cooked in the Army. After helping AJ with a book report on Clara Barton — the American nurse who founded the Red Cross in 1881 — the two friends collaborated to help feed the Las Cruces community last year.