From the Border to the Arizona Trail, Gil Gillenwater lives a life of adventure & service. Founder of Rancho Feliz Charitable Foundation, he shares insights from 40 years of service along the U.S. – Mexico border, emphasizing reciprocal giving, dignity, opportunity, and education for lasting change. His book, “Hope on the Border” highlights the human stories behind immigration, the border and wealth inequality. He introduces “Trail Blazers,” a documentary about his journey with his brother Troy that inspired the Arizona Trail.

You are listening to part two, episode 246, Gil Gillenwater,

The Truth About the US-Mexico Border

How do you feed a family and raise a family and educate a

family and house and clo- on $14 a day?

It's crazy.

It's just wrong.

It's a wealth inequity that, that should not exist, and what I advocate

is providing people the opportunity to live with dignity in their own country.

And that way they don't want to immigrate illegally.

They don't wanna leave their families and their food and their customs.

They truly don't.

But the wealth inequity is such that they have to sometimes.

. Catherine: Hello there.

I'm Catherine, your host of this Variety show podcast.

Your positive imprint is transforming how we live today

for a more sustainable tomorrow through education and information.

Your own positive actions inspire, change.

Check out my website, yourpositiveimprint.com, where you

can learn more about the podcast and sign up for email updates.

Thank you so much for listening.

And for your support of this podcast, your positive imprint.

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Hello, everybody.

My guest today, Gil Gillenwater, the founder of the Rancho Feliz Charitable

Foundation, has devoted nearly four decades to empowering communities

along the United States-Mexico border through what he calls reciprocal

giving, and we're gonna learn about that reciprocity here in a moment.

At Rancho Feliz, the focus is on empowering individuals rather than

simply providing handouts, fostering that dignity and self-sufficiency.

With millions invested in community development, Rancho Feliz invites you to

embark on this meaningful journey here with Gil His outstanding volunteerism has

earned him several prestigious awards, including Arizona's Hon Kachina and

Sonora's Premio a la Filantropía in 2021.

In 2009, he also initiated the Free a Village program in collaboration with

Free the Slaves, aiding Indian villages in their transition from slavery to

freedom, which garnered global recognition at the Clinton Global Initiative.

In addition to his philanthropic endeavors, Gillenwater is a black belt in

Kenpo Karate, and I do not know what Kenpo Karate is, so maybe he will elaborate on

that, and a certified hot yoga instructor, which we all need for relaxation.

He is also an enthusiastic outdoorsman, having led wilderness adventures

worldwide, including expeditions in Tibet.

Absolutely incredible.

He has authored his book, Hope on the Border, a firsthand account filled

with compelling stories about the 2,000-mile United States-Mexico border.

He highlights the disparities faced by both nations, United States

and Mexico, and as he described it, "a shared responsibility."

He is generally, genuinely making a difference - and

serves as a true changemaker.

He also, and he'll share this too, has an exciting film which I'm anxious to hear

about also, premiering this year in 2026, Trailblazers, and he'll share all of this.

But I wanna share this.

I love his words, and he's going to share so much with you, but his words

are, "You think you know the border.

You're about to learn the truth." Welcome to the show, Gil Gillenwater.

Catherine, thank you very much.

It was quite an introduction.

Yes, it's been a, it's been a rich and full life.

I'm a very fortunate, very fortunate man that way.

Oh, absolutely.

And, and I try to keep the introductions down, but it's like, oh my gosh, my

guests just have an incredible positive imprint to share that I wanna be sure

I get as much in there in case we don't talk about everything, then people can

go and learn so much more about you.

So again, welcome to the show, Gil.

Thank you.

And so you have this book, and the book is Your experience

and, and the title is phenomenal.

Hope on the Border What a title.

Well, you know, I've been doing this for almost

f- 40 years, and it's just an accumulation of lessons that I have

learned over that period of time.

Believe me, I've made my fair share of mistakes.

And as, as long as I've been on the border, , our cultures

are very, very different.

, the Mexican culture and the, and the culture in America, I'm not saying

one's better than the other or, or any of that, but they are very different

in how they treat each other and, and h- and there's so many lessons

we can learn from what they have.

They can learn lessons from what we have.

What I've tried to do is compile what I have learned on a lot

of my, my journeys overseas.

I spent a lot of time in the Himalayas.

I spent a lot of time in the hidden lands of Tibet talking with p- pretty

high level llamas and people like that, and learned a lot about human nature.

If we wanna, if we wanna motivate people and we wanna get people involved in

things, we have to know what is our base human nature and how we can satisfy that.

, and so I've incorporated a lot of that philosophy into the book, and, and

it, it's, it's kind of interesting.

I, I do have an- another story if you would, if you'd allow me to tell it.

Um, is that okay?

Oh, absolutely, Gil.

Absolutely.

I ran into a guy named Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche in

Kathmandu, and, , he gave us an audience, which was a big deal.

And I think there were five of us, and he signaled us over, and

there was a table with four chairs.

And he pointed over and he said, "Well, would you grab that other, uh…"

And, and I said, "Chair?" And he goes, "Oh, is that what it is?"

See, I could-- I thought he didn't know the, the, , name in English.

He says, "Is that what it is?" And I said, "Yeah, it's a chair." And

he goes, "Well, that's curious.

What part of it is the chair?

Is it the, the back?

Is it the four legs?

Is it the seat?" I said, "No, no, it, it's, it's everything

combined, it, it makes it a chair."

And he says, "So what you're pointing at there is a chair, and it exists

independently like you do." And I said, "Yes." And I picked it up and I, I

shook it, and I said, "This is a chair." And I, I knew something was coming up.

And he goes, "Wow, so it exists on its own." And I said, "Yes." And he

says, "Well, let me ask you a question.

Would that chair exist If there wasn't a woodcutter to cut down the wood?

Hmm.

And I said, "No, no, you had to…" "So the chair," he says, "is the, the sum

of the pieces and the woodcutter." And so I knew I was in trouble then, and

I s- and he says, "Well, how about the mother who gave birth to the woodcutter?

Would the chair existed…"

And he went on, "How about the truck that harvested the chair? How about

the sun that, that, you know, caused the photosynthesis in the tree? How

about the metal that was mined to make the blade that sawed the wood?"

And Catherine, it goes out, the chair is connected to everything.

Mm-hmm.

We are connected to everything.

We have this false idea that we exist independently, and we don't.

Everything I do affects you, everything you do affects me, and the sooner we

can understand that, the more inclined we're gonna be, uh, to help others,

because we understand that in helping others, we directly help ourselves.

And I think that that's a, a part of, of living that

many people don't reflect on or think about or any of the above.

Because- Right … you think about your clothing, and this is something I

learned from, from people from Australia who were on the podcast, , with Repair

Cafe, and they said that people don't honor the one that made their clothes.

Lot that goes into it to the creating,

Everything behind it, just like the chair.

I love that story.

So thank you for sharing that.

And so now,

Sorry, I'm a firefighter and we're, we're getting a call, but I'm not on duty, so

Okay.

You're a firefighter.

I love that.

Yeah.

I, I'm the chief.

Okay.

So, um, now, you talk about an invitation to get involved.

How do you invite people?

How are you getting the volunteers?

Well, you bring up a good subject there.

Most of our volunteers are American, - Mexico has developed a very, very

strong middle class and upper class, of course, and I would like to get Mexicans

more involved in charitable work.

So that's a big, that's a big challenge for us.

But on ours, it's word of mouth.

One of our, , groups that comes down, and they're typically groups like, um,

either church groups or, , school groups.

They come over.

Mm-hmm.

And, uh, they come over.

I have ASU.

I have University of Arizona.

We have a r- a lot of religious groups come.

Um, the one thing I say, "Look, if you come, you're, you're, you're in service.

You are not here to proselytize.

If you wanna proselytize, go somewhere else because that's

just not what we're about." We're not affiliated with any religion.

We're not affiliated with any, , political group, and that's one thing I really took

s- strong steps in the book that I wrote.

Not, we are not politically, , oriented.

We truly aren't.

But h- here's the facts.

Here's what I've witnessed, , you know, when the big asylum thing was going.

I'm on the border.

I walk the migrant trails.

I find the bodies.

We fund the DNA and are able to tell the, the families that, , "Your uncle's not

coming back." I mean, it, it's tragic.

The, the border itself, over 65,000 people have lost their lives on American

soil trying to get a better life.

What is that about?

In the 21st century?

I tell you, history is not gonna judge us well.

.. And I like to, in my book, I like to show what the American hand is.

It's easy to sit up here in our little , palace and say, "Why don't

those damn Mexicans stay in their own country?" Well, you come down here.

Let, let me show you the challenges, and then let me show

you how you're contributing to it.

Did you realize that out of the 40,000 murders in, in Mexico in I

think it was 2024, uh, 90% of them were guns either manufactured in

America or smuggled through America?

Do you realize that the Maquiladora plants down there where they're

paying their, their people $14 a day are virtually all American plants?

Over 3,000 American companies just on the other side of the border so

that they can build deceptively cheap flat screen TVs so Gil Gillenwater

can saunter into Costco in Scottsdale and buy a flat screen for 150 bucks.

And you always say, "Oh, how can it be so cheap?" Well, how it's so cheap

is you're taking advantage of people.

You're putting them in indentured servitude at $14 a

day so you can have a cheap TV.

We have a big hand in this problem down there, and we need to own that

and do something about it, in my mind.

And I think that's a disconnect is the not knowing.

Right.

What do you do about it if you don't know?

And that's where podcasts come in or- Mm-hmm … uh, people go to the

library and get books or read and become educated on what truly is happening.

Your words, and I will say it again, you think you know the border.

Well, you're about to learn the truth.

That's key, trying to connect people to what is happening.

Mm-hmm.

And there's a disconnect, and-

Yeah.

Right.

So… True.

You, you've said it very, very well, better than I could actually.

But the not knowing is another way of, of saying ignorance.

And, , if we're gonna speak to, uh, the border situation, I mean, it's our

southern border, it's very close to all of us, and we look in our nation

what's going on right now and, and some of the things that are happening.

I'm hoping that people, by reading this book, will get a better

understanding of why this is happening, why that's happening.

, between 2021 and 2024, 13 million undocumented immigrants wandered

into our country we didn't know.

I was there.

I s- I talked to the guys from Senegal.

I talked to the guys from the Congo.

It's crazy.

I got photographs of thousands of them, just came across the border, and

they were put in, in unmarked buses.

They were taken to hotels in Phoenix and Tucson that you couldn't get

into, so it was a real effort to hide it from the American people.

I talk about these things, but how can you have a sovereign country when

we don't know who the people are, we don't know what their background is?

I mean, I don't know w- I don't know what the motivation for that was, but

to me it was, uh It was treasonous.

It, it, you don't… If you're a sovereign country, you can't allow

people in who you don't know who they are, especially 13 million.

And Catherine, the book has some solutions.

I don't just point out problems.

Anybody can point out problems.

Here's what you do.

They say now we've got about 21 million illegals living and

working in the United States.

Well, first of all, our border policy's broken.

If you j- Mm-hmm … if, even if you went through the correct

channels, it'd take you 12 to 15 years to w- to wade through that.

It's broken.

We need a policy, and here, here's what I'm, here's what a, one of

the things I would pro- propose.

In 1942, we had the Braceros program, 'cause all of our

men were gonna go to war.

We needed somebody to pick the lettuce.

We went down into Mexico, and we brought up five million Mexicans to do

those jobs while our men were at war.

We vetted them.

We found out they weren't criminals.

We taxed them, so they weren't a drain on the system, and we let them work,

and we let them go home for Christmas or whenever they wanted to go home.

Where's the mystery in that?

We're aging out.

We need immigrants.

W- uh, our culture, our median a- , age now in America is 40, and it's a

decade younger than that in Mexico.

We need young workers in the United States.

So why can't we?

Why can't we give them a path to citizenship?

Vet them, let them work, and even the ones that are here already, let's try this on.

Again, I'm a big advocate of knowing who people are.

Vet 'em.

Make sure they're not criminals.

If they're not criminals and they're living here, say, "Okay, you have

to sign a document that says you broke the law 'cause you did."

And there's a certain segment of our society that's very important

that they acknowledge it.

It doesn't go on your cr- uh, record.

It's not a criminal offense, but you admit that you broke the law.

And then you are charged a $10,000 fine and you're given 10 years to pay it back.

Multiply 10,000 times 21 million.

It's a huge amount of money.

There's not a single illegal immigrant who wouldn't jump at the chance to pay

10,000 'cause that's about the same amount they paid the smuggler to get in here.

You give them 10 years to pay it, and that's their path to citizenship.

We've got to address this.

They call it the golden cage.

Can you imagine living and working in America if you weren't legal, never

knowing if you just drive to the store if you're gonna get pulled over,

jerked out of your car and deported?

What a horrible way to live.

We shouldn't make people do that.

We need to have a path.

Unfortunately, to me, it appears as though our politicians are more

interested in maintaining their power base than doing what's right for the

citizens and what's right for humanity.

What's w- what we're doing to people right now is wrong.

I w- I've been there.

I see these mothers.

They have their baby.

They've made it through the Darién Gap and they've gotten all the way up

here because they were told they could declare asylum and they get here and

we say, "Oh, we changed our minds.

We're gonna deport you back to Haiti now." Oh, it, it's, it's

just, it's, it's a human travesty.

And-

Excuse me.

I, I get, I kinda get wound up on it.

Well, this is what you've been doing for over 40 years.

Well, they're human beings.

They're, they're, they're just like you.

They have hopes, dreams like you and I do.

They have vulnerabilities.

They watch the sun come up.

They watch the moon.

We're, we're all the same.

Just by blind luck, I get to sit up here and they have to be down there.

And once that really sinks in, you just… That, that's just not right.

It's just not fair.

I wanna read something to you so this is from a guest.

I like to quote my guests because that's what I do.

Yep.

I have positive imprints.

So he says,

. "One planet, one people, oneness for humanity." That's pretty deep,

and that's exactly what you're saying, and that's what your book

is definitely trying to bring out,

Absolutely.

Absolutely it is.

I think they call that the overview effect, and, and it's when

astronauts go up and they see plant- planet Earth from far away, they

realize how we are all connected.

We're all… And it's such a fragile existence, and we need

to take care of each other.

I always think of two guys on a ship, a sinking ship, and they're fighting over

who's gonna get to drive it instead of fixing the leak, and the, the ship sinks.

That's kinda what we're doing here.

We need to take care of this planet.

We need to take care of each other.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

There's pl- w- it's an abundant world.

There's plenty of resources.

That's not the problem.

It's the mind.

It's the human mind.

You said it so well, fragile existence.

And that, and that's everything, our wildlife, exactly what you

said, nature, people, everything.

, Gil Gillenwater: I wanna give one other example about this wealth inequity,

because wealth inequity is, is a good sign of a social collapse, a societal collapse.

The average price home in Scottsdale right now is $850,000.

Oh my.

It's nuts.

, but here's, here's an example.

Our high school scholarships cost $300 a year, okay?

Do you know what Americans spent last year on pet clothing?

Take a guess.

Each individual or total?

Total

Hmm.

I guess in United States, I would have to say maybe 300,000.

I bet it's more than that.

Oh my gosh.

Five.

Get ready, Catherine.

It's $5 billion we spent on- Oh … pet clothing last year.

At $300 a year education, we could pay for 17 million years of

high school education for what we spent in one year on pet clothing.

It's a culture, it's a society out of whack.

We need to…

Why can't we take care of people first and then get our cat a sweater?

I mean, come on.

It's just an example of how, uh, how out of balance we are as a species.

Yeah.

Interesting.

And, and there is a lot that we all have to work on.

We were in Europe.

Czech Republic, you know, they don't get paid very much.

They're still a poor country.

They haven't had the wall down for that long, just- Mm-hmm … 19… What was it?

1990, 1989. And they're so happy.

Yeah.

Uh, uh, just- Yeah … you were talking about that in the beginning,

just the happiness of, of working and the dignity, and I think that's a- Yes

a big difference is the dignity.

I think you're right, and isn't it interesting

in that world happiness report America was ranked number 62?

Mexico was ranked number 25.

So here you have all these people in a happier country trying desperately

to get into an unhappier country.

And I-- my contention is it's the almighty dollar.

You know, we are all so motivated by money, and that's what, uh, capitalism

in the United States, uh, represents.

So it, it, it… But it definitely shows you that's not the route to, to a

happy and productive, meaningful life.

Yeah.

So, uh, okay.

So let's go to Tibet and-

Yes

… Catherine: there.

So first of all, you have the statue next to you.

Yes.

Buddha.

It's- I'm not a Buddhist, but I'll tell you what, I love the teachings.

I do.

Mm-hmm.

I think, uh, to me Buddhism is not a religion, it's a science of the mind.

It's how we think, why we think, and, and what we can do to, uh, offset

some of the feedback that we get.

You know, our mind isn't always our friend.

And so I see Our Lady of Guadalupe and-

Yeah.

Yeah, we got to honor her Covering all my bases here.

I love the Virgin Guadalupe because she has so many attributes.

In Buddhism, there's, uh, the, the goddess is Vajrayogini, and if you

read the symbolism between the two, they're, they're almost identical

on opposite sides of the planet.

Isn't that strange that these female, um, icons share the same symbolism on opposite

sides of the planet for 2,000 years?

I love to explore.

We had some of the very first permits from the communist Chinese in 1994 to get into

southeastern Tibet to the deepest gorge on the planet, over three miles deep.

, one of the most unstable places, , geologically, constant landslides, because

what you have there is the Himalayas are nothing more than the subcontinent

of India crashing into Asia, and the uplift is the Himalayan Mountains.

And, , and that's where all these people go, on their

pilgrimages and things like that.

It's just a fascinating country.

The rooftop of the world.

So that kinda gives us a segue to Trail Blazers.

Yes.

It's going to be premiered in 2026.

What brought you to Trail Blazers?

I mean, here you are Rancho Feliz, and now you have Trail Blazers.

Well, um, in 1978, my brother and I, my brother Troy,

, who's six, seven years younger than I am, we hiked the Pacific Crest

Trail from Oregon up to Canada.

Thought that was a wonderful thing.

We came back to Arizona and said, "Well, well, why don't we hike across Arizona?"

And so we started doing a little research.

Well, the problem with Arizona is water.

There's just no water.

So we, we said, "Well, we'll take mules, and we don't ri- we won't ride

the mules, but they can carry the water." And so that's what we did.

And we started in Guadalupe Canyon in southeastern Arizona,

and we walked 810 miles.

It took us two and a half months, all the way through the Grand Canyon and up

unt- up to Utah, across the entire state.

And we just did it because we could, I guess.

We ran, we ran into smugglers.

We got shot at.

I mean, it's quite an adventure in this documentary.

And, , lo and behold, after we did it, about five years later, they came up with

this idea of the Arizona Trail, and we looked at it, and that was our route.

And so we brought it to the attention of the Arizona Trail Association.

They said, "Well, if you can prove that you guys did it, we'll, we'll

honor that." And we had newspaper articles and everything else.

So if you go onto the website of the Arizona Trail, go to the, the people that

have crossed, thousands of people have hiked it these days, but my brother Troy

and I are the first to do it in 1982.

And they're having their, 40-year anniversary, and this documentary's

coming out, , to help them raise money for an endowment and to help

protect public lands in Arizona.

There's a big push right now to take public lands and sell them off, and

87% of the Arizona Trail is on public lands, so we need to get behind that

and support the, the pr- preservation of the trails and, and the public lands.

It's quite a movie.

When we did it, my brother and I met with the then governor

of Arizona, Bruce Babbitt.

I'm talking 40 years ago.

He went on to be Secretary of Interior for the United States under Bill Clinton.

And we went back and interviewed him after all these years.

He's 86 years old, and he remembers distinctly us in his office, and it's

a w- And then we have Kevin Fedarko, who is the author of The Emerald

Mile, which is a wonderful book, and A Walk in the Park, about his hiking

the length of the Grand Canyon.

It's a number one bestselling book.

So we've got some real interesting people on there, a lot of interesting

photographs, and it's the story of how the Arizona Trail came into existence.

This is incredible.

So not only are you working on the borders and saving humanity , you're also

trying to definitely preserve our own public lands here in the United States.

And- Ab-absolutely.

And I have to tell you, Catherine, I attribute most of the adventure, most

of the , the grand things that have happened in my life to my charitable work.

, if you think about something, , and I don't typically say it this

nicely, but jerks don't volunteer.

It's a great vetting program.

When you're in volunteerism, you are surrounded by wonderful,

high-minded, visionary people

That is very true.

That is very true, and the Europeans have a lot to say about that,

yeah, I agree with you on that one.

Sure.

And same with Mexico, though.

Mexicans have a much greater sense of family, I think, than

we do here in the United States.

, there's a real comfort in Mexico.

I, I never feel at risk, and that's another thing I'd like to say.

We've had over 28,000 volunteers cross the border, stay in our facility, which

is absolutely beautiful, rivals any hotel in Tucson, and help distribute

food, build houses, paint schools.

It just goes on and on.

And so typically they'll stay for three days.

They come from all over the United States, and they go home, and they alway-- We

don't have a marketing budget or an adverti- they always wanna come back

Everybody wins.

They have a wonderful experience, and again, the Mexicans get medical

care, they get housing, the ones that, uh, that can't afford it.

So yeah, everybody wins in that transaction.

But it's through your reciprocity program.

So it's- Mm-hmm … they're not just receiving, and I wanna get that

point across for listeners, is that they're not just receiving a handout

where, okay, you get to live in this house, you get this education.

They have to give back through , the reciprocity program that you- Ab-

they have to earn it.

They, you're absolutely correct.

It's a critical component to human nature and to human dignity.

You, they have to earn their food.

We all want to contribute.

Yeah.

Well, thank you so much.

And is there anything else?

I know we didn't get to Free a Village, but we can certainly

do that on, for another episode.

I would look forward to that.

I, I think that that would be great, and have two parts of the world.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah, that's a brutal one.

, but yes, this has been a really great opportunity to, to let me rant about

Yeah … about the border and the book and everything else, and I, I appreciate you,

, providing a format where I can do that.

It's, it's really important.

Okay.

So before your last inspiring words, let me just give some

information to the listeners.

To learn more about Gil Gillenwater, go to ranchofeliz.com, and

that is R-A-N-C-H-O F-E-L-I-Z.

Also, Hope on the Border, his book that he has authored, is

available on Amazon, amazon.com.

Okay.

So Gil Your last inspiring words here on the show for the listeners

My last inspiring words have to be this: when you're laying on

your deathbed, you need, we all need to be able to say, "You know, I left this

place a little better than I found it."

And I think service to others will provide that opportunity

where we can say those words.

Thank you, Catherine.

Wow, that was truly inspiring and really touching.

Gil, Gillenwater, thank you so much for being here on the show.

I hope our - our paths cross again.

I truly do.

Thank you.

I will make them cross.

I like that attitude.

Yeah.

All right.

I'll be there.

Okay.

Thank you and take care.

Yeah.

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