There will be no margaritas or sandy beaches during a June road trip to Mexico for some 60 Napa Valley residents who will instead be pouring concrete and swinging hammers, and they couldn’t be happier about it.

Project Hope Baja, a nonprofit program created by Justin Meyer, pastor of Calvary Christian Church of St. Helena, will take scores of residents from Calistoga, St. Helena, Napa, and other valley communities on a six-day trip to Baja, Mexico where they will build three small homes for three poor Mexican families who live there.

"It’s about four hours past Tijuana. It’s pretty desolate," Meyer said. "Most of the workers work in the field for as little as a quarter an hour. They live in total poverty"

"The structures barely qualify to be called a house, but they will certainly become a home to these families," said Dan Sund, a Calistoga residents who will be on the trip.

The 20-foot-by-20-foot structures with a concrete slab will have two bedrooms and a living space with no electricity or plumbing, but they will have a water storage tank on the roof for running water, and a two-burner cooking surface with a propane tank.

"It’s a glorified garden shed to Californians," Meyer said. "They have nothing right now so even an outhouse is a luxury to them."

Meyer was on a similar trip last year with folks from all around California and decided to start a group for this region.

"I started Project Baja Hope to provide humanitarian opportunities to people in the valley. It grew from my distaste for hearing about problems in the world, and I decided he was going to do something about it," Meyer said. "To those who have been given much, much is required."

Meyer’s entire family will join him on the trip. His 12-year-old son, David, who went on the trip last year, said he’s looking forward to going again.

With little experience in building, he got to work measuring, cutting, hammering, painting, and getting to know the people of Project Hope and the tribal families they were helping.

The families there have very little to begin with and Meyer was struck by how seemingly small things could mean so much to the folks there.

One woman wept at the sight of her first dishtowel. Another desperately begged for a tarp to cover her dwelling from the hot sun, Meyer said. It was the experience with this woman and the language barrier that inspired him to bring along 18 people who can translate. Last year there were only two.

In addition to building the structures, a medical team St. Helena Hospital, Clear Lake, will join him and provide basic medical examinations and treatment. They will also bring along and leave for the community a host of First Aid treatments and medications, as well as some much-needed walking aids.

Mark Petersen, a 40-plus-year Calistoga Lions member and owner of Silverado ACE Hardware, keeps a stash of wheelchairs, crutches, walkers, and other mobility equipment in the back of the store on Lincoln Avenue and two storage units down the street. The Lions club loans out the equipment to people who can’t afford to buy or rent their own.

Sund remembered this and suggested asking the Lions club to donate the surplus. Heading down to Mexico with the Project Hope Baja team will be a handful of wheelchairs, three or four dozen walkers, three or four dozen pairs of crutches, commodes, and other such equipment currently unavailable to the community there, Petersen said.

"You can’t imagine how much this will mean to them," Sund said.

Project Hope will also be taking military-grade indestructible soccer balls with them for the village children who don’t have toys or video games, but do play soccer all the time, Meyer said. They don’t have pumps so when the ball goes flat, that’s it, play stops.

The balls cost about $20 apiece and are made by a Berkeley-based company. He’d love to be able to take more than the 11 they’ve already purchased.

Money is still needed to support the group and its efforts. Of the $15,000 needed for the project they still need to raise about $7,000.

More information about Project Hope Baja can be found at the website Projecthope.me, or on their Facebook page.