Orphan OutreachThe Legg Family 2009As many of you know the seed of the Friendship Tree was planted in our hearts during our first trip to Guatemala to adopt our son Hunter. While in Guatemala we saw the poverty and the children who were suffering because of this. It broke our hearts and Scott and I decided we wanted to do something to help them. After we returned home, we started thinking of ways we could help and get our friends and family involved as well. Two months later we made our second trip to Guatemala to pick up Hunter. We brought Hunter home on October 5th, 2006 the day after his first birthday. The urge to give back was even stronger now that we were given the gift of a beautiful healthy son. We once again started thinking of ways we could give back. During that holiday season, we saw a huge need right here in our own community and decided that before we put all our energy into another country, we needed to put it into our own community.
Over the last couple of years, I thought many times about how the Friendship Tree started and hoped one day that we could find a way to implement helping the orphaned children of Guatemala without taking away from the good work the Friendship Tree is doing in our local community.
I feel that the Friendship Tree has grown a strong root system and is now in a position to extend one of its outreaching branches to Guatemala. We have chosen October as Orphan Outreach month. Each year in October we will collect an item needed by the children who live in the orphanages.
The needs of these children continue to grow with the closing of adoptions from Guatemala because of the Hague Convention. The orphanages are overflowing with children and the caretakers are trying to care for them with little funding.
If the Friendship Tree could help these children with one little item, it could make a BIG difference.
This October the Friendship Tree will be collecting NEW socks (size infant to adult) to send to an orphanage in Guatemala.
If you would like to donate to the Orphan Outreach project, please send an email to friendshiptreeny@aol.com.
UPDATE
I would like to thank everyone who participated in the Orphan Outreach. It took me 3 years to implement this project because I was unsure how our members would react to helping children in another country when we have a huge need right here. I guess I shouldn't have worried! I am overwhelmed by the response to this outreach.
Again, I would like to thank each and every member for donating to this cause. I would especially like to thank the following groups for participating:
-Teresa Deskur who asked all her birthday guests to donate socks for the Orphan Outreach instead of gifts for her.
-Vestal High School - 3 Spanish Classes - Mrs. Sandra Flesher
-Four Seasons Club Members - Catholic Charities
-Carousel Harmony Chorus
-Conklin Rotary
We collected 1,129 pairs of socks.
On Saturday, Trudy and I made the trip to Ephrata, PA to deliver the socks to Orphan Resources International. We met Rob Martin the founder. Rob and Sarah Martin founded Orphan Resources International in 2002, while visiting their first of five adopted children from Guatemala. During this time several orphanages where visited, and the great need for a support network was recognized. From this point ORI was developed on a small scale to take work teams and donations to 2 or 3 private Guatemalan orphanages. They have grown over the last 7 years and now serve 45 orphanages and 3,000 children. They were very thankful for the socks because there is a huge need for them. Rob and Sarah look forward to partnering again in the future with the Friendship Tree. We even discuss the possibilities of the Friendship Tree putting together a work team for 2012 to go and work at one of the orphanages for a week.
If you would like to learn more about Orphan Resources International, visit their web site at www.orphanresources.org.
I look forward to October 2010's Orphan Outreach.
The Friendship Tree
