Location: Old St. Mary’s School
Date: Thursday, October 24, 2013; 6:00-7:00 pm
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| My first letter from Brenda |
I had volunteered through One
Brick for a NPH event and during then, not only had I learned more about the
organization, but had seen the photograph of a little girl with twin ponytails
and she had won my heart. I found out
that her name was Brenda; she was 20 months old and resided in El
Salvador. The following week I had
written to NPH saying that I wanted to sponsor Brenda every month and while
mine was going to be a nominal amount, it was sure to make a difference in her
life. A few days after the paperwork
went through, I received a welcome package which included her picture and what looked like a handwritten letter in Spanish.
In that she – or rather someone else writing on her behalf – said that she had
4 sisters, liked to dance and color as well as eat pizza and sing. She said that she liked to play with her
friends and really liked ‘Dora The
Explorer’. Looked like little Brenda
was certainly an interesting person and not a bad 'Goddaughter' to have. Thus, my formal association with NPH had
started and because of that, I was on their mailing list and kept informed of
everything that was going on with them. I
received an email saying that a children’s musical performing group from El
Salvador, called ‘Pequeños’, was
visiting Chicago and the neighboring suburbs and there was an evening scheduled
to meet with them and do some pumpkin carving while we were at it. Not an opportunity that I would have missed
under any circumstance.
I was corresponding with a NPH
staff member Betsy and told her that although the program was supposed to start
at 5 pm, I would only be able to make it there after work, around 6 pm. She said it would be fine, just that I should
expect a lot of pumpkin mess when I arrived.
The venue was in a school on South Michigan Avenue and as I walked up to the
address, I first entered the church that was affiliated with the school. It was completely empty barring one person
who directed me to the school across the parking lot. I checked in with the security and they
called someone to come downstairs to get me.
I was escorted to the party room by one of the teachers of the school,
who told me that the kids were having a lot of fun and I was just in time to
see their creations with the pumpkins. That
was absolutely true as I entered the room to see lots of kids gathered around
the table carving pumpkins and some were decorating masks. I met Betsy, who introduced me a group of
kids and their chaperon. All of them
spoke Spanish and so Betsy was interpreting for me. Since these kids were from El Salvador, I
wondered if they knew Brenda and so I showed them her photograph. Well, not only did they did know her, based
on their reaction they seemed to be quite fond of her as well.
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| Pumpkin carving supplies |
I walked about and saw some kids
carving with some sharp looking knives and hoped that they knew what they were doing. Some of the other NPH staff members whom I had met during the One Brick event, such as Melissa and Gaby, were also in attendance and I chatted with them for a bit. Seeing that the pumpkin carving was almost done, Betsy asked if I wanted to sit with the group decorating the masks. I was more than happy to and joined a group at a table which also had one of NPH’s ‘Young Professional’s’ board member, Megan. We chatted about NPH while the kids around us
were making masks. Since no one spoke much
English, Betsy had to come over frequently to translate what they were saying
and what I was trying to say; though I did tell them that their English was far
superior to my Spanish, and I would even struggle to tell the language apart from Italian! One of the girls had made a lovely mask with
purple feathers and considering that she was wearing a purple striped shirt and
purple makeup, it wasn’t too difficult to tell what her favorite color
was. The kids then moved on to play ‘Twister’ and it looked like they were
enjoying themselves. Megan said that it
was a pity that she was too old for that, though I told her that there’s shouldn't be any age
limit to having fun.
I met a lady with whom I had
chatted during the gala setup and she recognized me. When she learned that I was now sponsoring a
child, she thanked me profusely and even gave me a hug. She said that I should perhaps look into
becoming a board member since there were lot of ways I could get involved in
the program. The time was almost over
and the kids were now taking a group picture and they looked genuinely
happy. Over the weekend they were attending a Halloween party and everyone would be in a costume, one duo going as a
cow and a cowboy! Wonder if they had
recruited someone else to be a horse as well.
Before leaving, Betsy introduced me to the “baby” of the group, a young man who would be turning 14 over the
weekend. I told her that he was going to
have the birthday of a lifetime. Looking
at these kids, it was easy to forget that all of them were living in an
orphanage. They had so much joy to give
and as far as they were concerned, their real family was each other. I was proud to be involved with them and
especially Brenda. I was now invested in the organization and I told this to Gaby and Betsy.
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| Another letter |
A few weeks later I came home
after a tough day and was emotionally drained.
As I looked through my mail, I found another letter from Brenda. This
one had a hand drawn picture of what looked like a family of four in a field
with a tree and the sun and a blue cloud in the sky. At
that moment, with everything that was going on, I felt like I had a family of
my own. With tears in my eyes I looked at those stick
figures and Brenda’s latest photograph accompanying the letter, I knew that
while one may not get what they want in life, there are other ways to
seek those things out. Yeah sure money
can’t buy you love or other things people crave the most. But it sure goes a long way in making things
easier, while doing some good as well. This letter was the proof of
that.
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