NEW BEDFORD Members of the Guatemalan community came together Tuesday evening to remember the two men who perished in a fire on Acushnet Avenue that also destroyed two buildings, two businesses and displaced dozens of residents.
Tomas Gomes, 48, and Juan Macario Mejia, 40, were remembered in a vigil set up outside in a parking lot near the site of the fire at 1279 and 1283 Acushnet Ave.
Gomes has family in Guatemala and Mejia has family in New Bedford and Guatemala, said Andrian Ventura who organized the vigil. Ventura is the executive director of Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores (Community Worker’s Center), a not-for-profit organization that works with the immigrant community in New Bedford. The CCT office is located just down the block from where the fire happened.