Building Hope, From Manhattan to Mexico
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

As a former combat photographer and ambulance driver, Robert Katz sounds more like a character out of Hemingway than an undergraduate at Hunter College.
“Good Jewish boys from New Rochelle don’t join the Marines,” a sibling told the then 17-year-old Mr. Katz when he decided to sign up. “That made me want to do it more,” he explained. “I wanted to do something different. Everybody thought I was crazy for joining, and I liked that.”
“When I was growing up, my father was in the Reserves and we would drive up to West Point,” Mr. Katz said. “I was in awe of soldiers. Maybe I watched too many Rambo movies.”
The youngest of five children born to Davina Katz, a caterer, and Richard Katz, an optician and Naval Reservist, Mr. Katz, enlisted in December 1994. He postponed for six months so he could finish high school in 1995.
“I graduated the 21st of June, and I left for boot camp June 26,” he explained. “For the first time, I felt I was good at something. I had been a below average student, but I was good at being a Marine. It was great.”
For two years he served at Paris Island, S.C., and Yuma, Ariz. “I hated it,” he said of the latter. “I didn’t join the Marines to go to Yuma.” Eventually he transferred to a Marine Expeditionary Unit based at Okinawa, Japan.
“From there, life got exciting,” he recalled. “We were always going.” Based on ships, his unit traveled to “any hot spots in Asia or the Middle East.” He worked as a combat photographer and served in Kuwait, embedded with troops on the front lines bombing Iraq in December 1998’s “Operation Desert Fox.”
“I was very tempted to stay in,” said the former sergeant. “I wanted to be a general some day. I was good at it. I applied to the Naval Academy in 1997, and I was accepted. That had been my dream. Now I had gotten in and didn’t want to do it anymore.”
“‘I want to help people,’ was my mantra growing up, but as a kid I also wanted to be in the military. I realized halfway through that I wasn’t helping people. The truth is; I was training to kill people. It’s a weird thing,” he said, scratching his short brown hair. “I wasn’t fulfilled.”
After the Marines, at age 21, “I had more confidence, “he said. “When I came back, I started going to college here,” he said, tapping a gray table in a small room at Hunter College’s Health Services, where he works as an EMT. (He has a year and half left of pre-med studies.)
Now 27, the soft-spoken student still defies convention, following his dream of helping. Along with a group of friends, he founded “Building Beyond Borders.”
He made his first trip to Tijuana, Mexico, to build houses for needy families three-and-a-half years ago. “When you cross the border, everything changes,” Mr.Katz explained. He described a landscape of “dirt roads, shacks, dirt floors in the shack, shacks without windows.”
On December 23, he returns to Tijuana for one of Building Beyond Borders’ three yearly building projects. A few days later, a group made up mostly of New Yorkers arrive to spend their vacation as volunteer builders. “I go early to set up,” he explained. Most of the group comes from December 26-30.We’ll build two houses and stay at City of Angels Orphanage. This trip is 26 people. Probably about 18 are repeats. We’ve really become a family. We’re very, very tight.”
“They range in age from 15 to – how old is my mom? My mom is 62,” he said, counting her as a regular participant. From January 2-8,a second group – this one 10 people – arrive to help. “People hear by word of mouth. People who go generally have a good story to tell, and they tell co-workers,” he explained. “We’ve taken about 70 different people. Many have gone back several times.”
Mr. Katz got his start in construction as a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity Westchester, the summer he returned from his four-year stint in the Marines.
In 1999, “When I volunteered for Habitat in Westchester, I took my first trip to Tijuana with a Christian group called ‘Club Dust.'” Club Dust built four houses and Mr. Katz returned the following year. “In 2001 we formed our own group. I had started telling my friends about it. Club Dust was growing so big, they encouraged spin-offs, so more people could come and build.”
“Our group is everything,” he said, referring to its lack of religious affiliation. “It’s very mixed. We reflect New York. We have Jews, Christians, and atheists. Our group reflects who we are, a group of friends who want to help people.” In 2001 they formed Club Fiesta. “We were drinking some beers at the end of a trip. We took a vote and came up with ‘Club Fiesta.'” (Fiesta means “party” in Spanish.) On a later trip, one volunteer, an attorney, felt so inspired by the group’s work that he helped make it a New York State nonprofit corporation. Building Beyond Borders was born. The organization is in the process of becoming a national nonprofit.
Asked about the number of housing forays the group has made, the Harlem resident thought for awhile and said, “Maybe 10 – a lot. We’ve done one every summer, every Christmas, and sometimes in January. Right now we’re doing three per year.” As for the number of houses built, he paused and counted silently, smiling slightly as he recalled the families. “I’d say about 15,” he said, scratching his head. “We vary sites. Sometimes we just do construction on the orphanage, or we work with other organizations, “he trailed off, considering all the possibilities.
“If we start thinking about numbers, we forget about people. We see how they’re living.We ask to go inside where they live. We’re not house centered. We’re family centered. Our main focus is not the construction part. It’s the family.”
By January 8, Tijuana will have two more very happy families installed in Building Beyond Borders homes.