Fifteen truckers defied the first snowstorm of the season and left Joliet on Saturday morning for an annual pilgrimage.

The truckers headed for the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Des Plaines and were joined this year by buses carrying immigrant advocates who added a second cause to the annual caravan.

Truckers each year travel to the shrine to invoke the Virgin Mary’s blessings for what can be hazardous work.

“We move America,” trucker Alfonso Duenez said. “We have a lot of incidents on the road. We want to come home to our families.”

Duenez, of Joliet, has organized local truckers for the pilgrimage since 2018.

“We are a big transportation area,” Duenez said, noting that local truckers typically make up a large contingent of the Chicago regional pilgrimage.

The pilgrimage officially starts on the Southwest Side of Chicago. Joliet-area truckers typically drive their cabs individually to the Chicago meeting spot and proceed from there.

This was the first time that local truckers gathered in Joliet to drive together to Chicago.

It also was the first year that they were joined by Joliet residents, who made the pilgrimage to show solidarity with immigrants.

“We are going to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe to pray for peace and justice for immigrants all over the world,” event organizer Alma Montero said.

The federal immigration crackdown, and especially its effect in the Chicago area, prompted the addition of the second cause to the pilgrimage, she said.

Small flags from countries around the world were distributed before a brief religious service that preceded the departure from Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church.

But it was mostly a Hispanic group at the event.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel is a Hispanic parish. The buses that joined the caravan included parishioners from St. John the Baptist Church in Joliet.

Montero, who does social work for Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish, said she has worked with three families who had lost someone taken away by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

“We’re asking for peace,” said Maria Munoz, who serves a similar role as Montero’s at St. John the Baptist parish. “We’re asking for people to be treated as humans. We’re asking for dignity for everyone.”

While truckers and parishioners braved the storm that was expected to drop between 4 and 8 inches of snow before ending overnight, the number of participants was much lower than the number who registered.

Still, about 150 people gathered at Our Lady of Mount Carmel for the service that preceded the departure about 10 a.m.

Those who joined the pilgrimage included Joliet City Council member Juan Moreno, who makes his living driving a truck.

Moreno said joining the Joliet caravan mattered “to bring more of an awareness to what we’re doing.”

Despite the snowstorm, changing the date would have been a challenge as well, Munoz said.

Another winter date could produce weather just as bad or worse, she noted. Also, the event is organized with permits in the municipalities through which the pilgrimage travels. Changing the date would require a new round of permits.

Joliet police ushered the caravan through the city on Route 53. Once it reached Crest Hill, squad cars from the Will County Sheriff’s Office guided the caravan to Interstate 55.

In Chicago, the local caravan would join a larger group of trucks that then would travel through Cook County on the pilgrimage to Des Planies.

The event is held ahead of the Dec. 12 feast day for Our Lady of Guadalupe, a date on the Roman Catholic calendar commemorating what is believed to be the appearance of the Virgin Mary to Juan Diego, an indigenous Mexican, in 1531 at a location near Mexico City.