Friends of Hogar del Nino Newsletter
MAY/JUNE 2015
The purpose of this newsletter is to give you ongoing information about Hogar del Nino. We hope that it will improve your
understanding of how donations are being used, the current needs of the Hogar, information about volunteer efforts, and many more
tidbits of data. If you’re not on the current email distribution list, please email Nancy Naigle at [email protected] to be added. If you
have questions that you’d like to see answered in the newsletter, just let Nancy know.
As we’re now into the summer months, the kids need shorts, tee
shirts and swim suits. For all these needs it is best to make a monetary donation so that specific
clothing sizes can be purchased as needed. Contact [email protected] or 612-178-0040 or Nancy
Serfass [email protected] if you wish to help out with these necessities.
What the children need:
Thank you to The Waters Church! Many thanks to the Waters Church from Houston, Texas,
area who visited in April. Pastor Brad Graves led a large group of caring volunteers who
accomplished several projects for the Hogar, including installing a water filtration system. Thank you
Waters Church!
Welcome ALKARE!
We are very delighted to announce ALKARE Foundation as a new
supporter of Hogar del Nino. ALKARE provides support for food to six orphanages in Mexico and
Africa. As part of ALKRAE’s mission statement they believe that adequate and nutritious food is vital
to the long term development of the children. Their motto reflects this with the words “HUNGRY
STOMACHS HAVE NO EARS”. Many, many thanks to ALKARE for the work you do for the children.
For more information click: http://www.alkare.org/
Adult Residential Center: For those who’ve visited the Hogar, you know that most of the adult
caretakers live in trailers on the Hogar property. The existing trailers were old, small, cramped and in
very poor condition. We are very fortunate to have the support of the Rotary Club of Mission San
Rafael, California, to improve the living conditions for the caretakers and to embark upon an overall
improvement to the adult residential center. The long term plan is to create a nice setting in which the
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trailers are situated with a common use palapa, walking paths and gardens. The first step is to start
the process of replacing the old, dilapidated trailers and that was begun the week of May 25 when the
first wonderful , very gently used “new” trailer arrived! The first trailer became the new home for
Victor and Deisey and their new baby girl. The second trailer, pictured just as Manuel, Rosy and
Isaac were moving in, was delivered on June 6. See below photos which include the Rotary group
members Victor and Patty Baldridge, Jack Wilkinson, Susanne Karch, Jim Ring, and Sandra Gordon.
Rotary Club of Mission San Rafael previously donated bakery equipment, laundry equipment and
workshop tools in addition to a new van. How can we ever thank these dedicated folks enough for
being so caring and working so hard to help Hogar del Nino? The latest effort to procure the hard-tofind trailers was a great accomplishment!
Lunchtime Meals:
Thanks so very much to those who are providing meals. These meals provide great
variety as well as give a little break to the staff. We welcome teams who have recently responded to ads in the
Baja Western Onion. If you would like to form a team who could provide a meal once a month, contact Janelle
Palma at [email protected]
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Roof for new building! With funding provided by friends of Rotary Club of Boulder City , NV, we
were able to add a shade structure to the new building funded by generous donors after Hurricane
Odile. With the completion of this project, we have wrapped up Hurricane Odile recovery efforts.
Very special thanks to Rotary Club of Boulder City for their ongoing support of Hogar del Nino!
Dr Keith Bradburn Proivdes Dental Care for the Kids! In May Dr Keith Bradburn from
Walnut Creek, CA, visited the Hogar with his wife and children to provide dental care for the kids. Dr.
Keith examined all the kids, recorded all their dental needs and cleaned all their teeth. This was
accomplished in one day due to able assistance of Sherri Neil-Herda and the use of Dr Angel
Hernandez Boeza’s dental office in downtown Todos Santos. The photos show how much the kids
enjoyed their special services! Thank you Dr Bradburn for the love and care you gave the children.
Also thanks to the Bradburn family Lindsay, Alyssa, Brooks and Lily who brought so many fun arts
and crafts projects to keep the kids occupied during the day while waiting for their turn to visit the
office. And finally, much gratitude to Ron and Sue Peters who facilitated this visit, and to Ron for
shuffling the kids back and forth, and Sue for assisting with the arts and crafts. Finally, this project
could not have been accomplished so quickly and effectively without Sherri Neil-Herda and Dr
Angel’s office. Smiling thanks to all!
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Volunteer/Supporter Profile:
Our featured volunteer for May/June is:
Leslie Crane
With the help of Joel and Alicia as interpreters, I've been providing psycho-education classes and training in therapeutic
parenting practices for 3 months for the staff at the Hogar del Nino. Additionally, I have conducted groups for the children
introducing similar concepts, the building blocks of good self-esteem and mental health, through activities and discussion
of self-empowering and esteem-enhancing concepts and life-skills, including feelings' management techniques,
communication, and other personal and inter-personal relationship skills.
I was born and raised in a West Los Angeles beach community but, as a product of the 60's, was influenced by the backto-the land & nature, simple-values movement of the day, and hungered for a rural life, the seasons and the mountains. So
2 days after taking my undergraduate finals at UCLA, I drove to Colorado and immediately found and settled in Telluride.
There I've enjoyed a most blessed life for forty years; meeting and marrying my husband, Bud, (a ex-team surfer from San
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Diego who had previously moved there), and raising our most precious daughter, Natania, who is now 29, beautiful inside
and out, extremely successful, and continues to amaze us.
As Southern California beach kids, Bud and I always dreamed of having a second home at the beach in Baja. We had both
been coming here, primarily because of surfing, for 40+ years, and in 2003 we were able to buy a small lot at the beach in
Las Tunas. In 2006 we started to build and spend the winter half of each year here.
Although I've volunteered for a few different organizations and projects in Todos through the years, the Hogar has a
special place in my heart, and I began volunteering there doing art projects or playing music and singing with the kids,
sporadically, not long after they located in Todos Santos. This year I felt called to offer my professional skills, lifetime of
study, and experience as licensed psychotherapist and parenting educator.
At a very young age, perhaps 10, I knew I was destined to be a psychologist and teacher, and I also recall that I wanted to
have an orphanage when I grew up, so I could love the unloved, uncared-for children back into happiness, and life. I think
this is related to my love of Shirley Temple movies, in which she was often an orphan, and also to my early desire to be a
therapist. So, the Hogar has been a total gift to me; an opportunity to somehow fulfill this deeply-rooted desire.
In Telluride, I worked for many years as a licensed professional counselor for our large regional mental health center, and
previously as a social worker and health & parenting educator for both the local county nursing and the social services
departments. With these public agencies, I traveled to distant, remote, rural communities and worked with individuals of
all ages, couples, and families. My clients were primarily from the most underserved; the poorest population, with major
and chronic problems and backgrounds of abuse/violence and neglect. For this reason, I spent years studying the impacts
of early abuse and neglect on development, and therapeutic methods to most effectively help survivors of such.
These effective methods include healing and re-parenting techniques, methods to grow self-esteem, self-agency and new
belief systems to promote desired change, and life skills training including feeling's management coping skills, and intraand inter-personal relationship skills.
Shop Talk
:
We'll, it's been a busy time in the shop these two months. Some of my best workers have left since last
newsletter but the work goes on. We've been making cutting boards like crazy and they just keep flying out the
door. This is especially hard when an "event" happens in town and we have to work up a dozen or more. The
problem is that visitors drop in and buy up all our inventory - a nice problem to have!
Help Wanted: So that we can continue production of cutting boards and take on new projects
as well, I am looking for someone to take over the cutting board production. This would
involve working with the kids as well as one of the adults at the Hogar. Someone with woodworking skills and knowledge of tools and safety practices who has a half day available each
week could help the children a lot. Please contact me at the email address below if you have
an interest in this.
Special thanks to board member Ron Peters and his crew of stalwarts who pitched in with help on the shop's
windows and tool cabinet. In May, Bruce McIntosh and Dan Menegus from Walnut Creek, California, visited
and added finishing touches to the new wood shop while Rita McIntosh kept the children busy with an art
project. Many thanks to Bruce, Rita, Dan, and Lynn for their continuing support of the Hogar. We're getting it
together "poco a poco" as we say.
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Bruce installing woodshop windows
Dan working on storage
David Yager, Shop Guy
Rita with the kids
[email protected]
Friends of Hogar del Nino Goals for 2015:
We have set our fundraising goal for 2015 at $90,000. This represents a 12% increase over the
actual funds donated for non-building or hurricane relief in 2014.
Through May, our 2015 year to date donations are as follows:
2015 Year to Date
Donations by Category
2015 Fundraising Goal (USD)
Status Year to Date
$100,000
$90,000
$80,000
$70,000
$60,000
$50,000
$40,000
$30,000
$20,000
$10,000
$-
Recurring
Monthly
Donations
$90,000
$19,097
$56,726
$33,274
$56,726
$27,573
One Time
Donations
Fundraisers
$10,056
Full Year Goal
Year to date
through May
Remaining
needed to
achieve goal
Total Year to
date through
May
So many heartfelt thanks to those who have donated for the support of the children this year. For
those wishing to make a one-time donation or begin a recurring donation, here’s how:
How to make a donation to Hogar del Nino:
1. To make a tax deductible donation using credit card:
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 http://padrinoproject.com/?page_id=42
 Click
 Click either the
or
 Then designate amount of one-time or ongoing donation and complete billing information.
2. Send a check to:
The checks should be made out to: "Children of Faith Missions" and "Hogar del Nino" must be written on the
memo line of each check.
Mail to:
Hogar del Nino
℅ Children of Faith Missions
Post Office Box 3453
Walnut Creek, CA 94598
3. To use online banking from your US bank:
a. Use Bill Pay feature to write a check (specifying Hogar del Nino as account number or on memo line) and
send to the above address listed under “Send a check”. Most Bill Pay systems allow for repetitive
payments to be automatically set up.
4.
If you wish to use a wire transfer to send funds, please send an email to
[email protected] for details on account numbers, etc.
Donations made in any of these ways will be deposited into a bank account for Hogar del Nino in the US (JPMorgan
Chase) and then monies will be transferred to a Hogar account at Bancomer in Todos Santos. Monies from this account
are distributed by the Hogar Advisory Board based on need and tracked by expenditure type. Donating in any of these
ways will ensure that you receive an end of year tax letter.
Do you have questions or comments about the Hogar?
If you have any questions you’d
like to see answered in this newsletter, please send them to Nancy Naigle at [email protected].
Sources of information about Hogar del Nino:
Email: [email protected]
English language website: http://hogardelnino-baja.org/
To donate online: http://padrinoproject.com/?page_id=42
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Hogardelninotodossantos
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