Funeral services for local philanthropist Friday

The Papago Buttes community lost a local chapel and a philanthropist in the early morning fire June 26.

Jose Nazareno, 79, known to loved ones as Joe, was unable to escape the quickly burning fire at the Divine Mercy Chapel where he and his wife, Rosalinda (known to friends and family as Lori), lived upstairs in the chapel they built themselves.

Funeral services for Nazareno will be 10 a.m. Friday at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Roman Catholic Church at 2121 S. Rural Road in Tempe.

Rosalina Nazareno escaped through an upstairs window after her husband warned her about the fire. 

The Ak-Chin Indian Community Fire Department, Thunderbird Farms Volunteer Fire Department and Maricopa Fire Department all responded and successfully contained the fire to the one building.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation. 

Nazareno, along with his wife, were known for the energetic way they embraced their philanthropic work, especially feeding people.

“Their main thing was feeding people,” Gina D’Abella, Joe Nazareno’s daughter-in-law, said. “Everybody that knew him, they just knew him for food.” 

She explained that before the couple retired to Maricopa in 2001, they would go to stores in Phoenix, put together food boxes and then drive around the Valley distributing them to people in need.

Once they were finished building the Divine Mercy Chapel and mission, the couple moved into its living quarters upstairs and continued their good works.

Retirement didn’t slow them down a bit, however.

“They were never relaxed,” D’Abella said. “They would go to church several times a week. They would do food boxes. They were always going, going, going.”

The couple used their retirement money to build the chapel and mission, which D’Abella said Joe Nazareno believed was his calling.

“They just kept adding on to it. … So traveling priests and nuns would have a place to stay,” D’Abella said.

And although they were getting older and couldn’t drive around as much, they still used the mission as a place from which to distribute food boxes and help those in need.