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Just Saying: A change of heart

James Bornemeier
James Bornemeier

A while back, Sally Struthers, after her run as the zany daughter, Gloria Stivik, on “All in the Family,” made soulful TV entreaties to send money to help starving children in developing countries.

I didn’t rush to the phone. Over the years, I’ve seen countless spots by animal rescue groups with video of sad-eyed dogs, usually in cages, asking for a little help. Didn’t move a muscle. As they said, all they wanted was pennies a day. I sat on my hands often wondering, why is my heart so cold?

Recently, the super cool Susan Sarandon has been on the tube making her pitch for hungry kids, for a group that supplies farm animals to starving families to begin a partial sustainable solution. This time I didn’t feel so guilty. A year or so ago, I became a sponsor of a child in serious need.

It happened this way.

I was walking down Third Avenue in Manhattan when I encountered a young man clearly hoping to get the attention of passersby. But like virtually everyone, my stock reaction was to pretend such people were invisible. Surprisingly, I found myself stopping and learned he was seeking sponsors for poor kids in countries scattered across the globe. The group was Children International, an organization that focuses on the health, education and development of impoverished children.

He began his spiel and something kicked in. Repressed Struthers guilt? I stopped him (his name was Adam) midway through the presentation and said I was on board. We did the sign-up: I picked Ecuador and gender — a girl. A whopping $28 a month. Adam did a double selfie of us.

A couple of weeks later, I got the package about my kid, Nashly Nisha Acosta Alvarado, 7, of the coastal city of Guayaquil. A round, brown face with a broad smile; a mom, a dad, a 3-year-old brother; three bedrooms, one bath, toilet, running water; split cane walls, corrugated metal roof, wood floor; gas stove; and monthly income about $200. Soon the correspondence would begin. The Children International website makes it easy, providing colorful templates for letters and cards, and I eagerly shot off my first letter.

Her letters (she sent three over time) were full of thanks, happiness and some mild boasting about herself and her success in school. Her favorite subjects were math, language and environment.

“I am on vacation because I did the exams and feel marvelous. I am an excellent child in everything and I am in good health in union with my family,” one letter said. On weekends, she and her brother go to the beach, another said. “I like music so much and I dance all the time.”

I should be so lucky.

For Christmas, with gentle nudging from Children International, I sent a little extra money, not really knowing if it would result in actual presents or additional services like health checkups or school supplies.

I sent a card to say hello and waited.

Weeks went by and I was tempted to call the home office of Children International in Kansas City to check on her, but decided to wait for Nashly’s next epistle. Instead, a few months later, I received a letter from the president of Children International: Nashly and her family had vanished.

Children International staff had been trying to get in contact with her and discovered that she and her family had moved away. Neighbors and friends had no clues as to what had happened. The letter said this happens fairly frequently in poor communities around the world, and the best possible spin on the situation is that the family, looking for the smallest opportunity to improve their situation, had to move swiftly to take advantage of it. I am going with this optimistic explanation because I don’t want to ponder the alternatives.

In a gingerly fashion, the letter wondered that, after I got over the shock of losing Nashly, would I consider supporting another child? I had already decided to do that before I got to the paragraph broaching the subject.

I called the Children International home office to chat with a human being about it. There was no update on Nashly and I asked if the organization had been able to check up on the kids in the program after the recent earthquake there. All were accounted for and no destroyed houses came back on the report. I told him I was eager for my next kid.

She turned out to be Yesbeth Odalis Ona Ochog, 7, from Quito, Ecuador’s capital. The photo shows a trim girl in a crisp white polo shirt, her arms akimbo and a Mona Lisa smile. Her first two letters started off with: “I greet you with affection.” I learned subsequently that Yesbeth, like many kids in the program, can cycle through several sponsors (if they’re lucky, I suppose) and probably become a bit more sanguine about the realities of the program and, perhaps, a little more knowing about how to reel in sponsors’ hearts.

Of course, one never can be sure about the extent to which Children International staff get involved in the substance of the letters; all I can tell you is that Nashly and Yesbeth come across as very different girls and write very different kinds of letters.

Yesbeth thought our names were very pretty —the monosyllabic Jim and Jane — and told me to say hello to my children and grandchildren and called us “noble friends.”

I dearly hope Nashly and her family are safe, but look forward to hanging out with Yesbeth for a good long time.