something more important

By no means am i a professional philanthorpist (I can hardly take care of myself) but I do know an opportunity to help keep abandoned kids off the deadly streets in Cordoba, Mexico. While I was there I visited a a contact of stephanie gatica, a friend from Iowa.
Casa Hojar Peregrinos de la Palabra de Dios orphanage is privately run and supported by Chucho Melchor Torres and his family. They buy fruits and vegetables in the mountains and load them in his truck to sell in at city markets. In addition there is guy named Skip Spindler (949)-722-1194 who almost solely supports the orphanage sending 1500 a month with some help from his church in California. also the efforts of Stephanie who helps monetarily, medically and has set up volunteer trips to help out at the orhanage doing work etc. for a week or two at a time. the kids got a kick out of sitting on the bike One thing that sticks out from my visit was their adamancy about not opening the door to my room at night. “NO MATTER WHAT DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR TONIGHT, NO MATTER WHAT, FOR NOTHING”
Ok I got the message loud and clear but still asked, why? The sick reason was something no one wants to think about…people (scumbags) come to the orphanage sometimes at night to steal anything they can, like food, money, cows, chickens and most shockingly the kids. To either sell or use as a way to get money I suppose? At any rate the orphanage does have a nice chain linked fence but it doesn’t quite keep all the scum out. Thankfully no kids have gone missing, yet.

This ride isn’t something I do everyday like a trip to the grocery store so I am thinking I can use it to both see and experience all these different countries/ cultures along with great riding but also hopefully raise enough money and volunteers to buy and set-up a rod iron tall fence that would surround the premises of Casa Hogar orphanage. Which I think would take $15,000 for the fence itself and as many people as possible who want to help with the physical labor of setting it up, probably a week or two worth of work. Can anyone who reads this help with any of that? I hope so.

here is a view of the current fence which is good but can be gotten over or cut fairly easilythey have a guard dog on the roof that does a good job of making noise but not sure actual attacking. he did guard the food/supplies we bought at the store thoughChucho set up the orphanage in 1992 after spending years working at others and experiencing the taking advantage aspect while the government did support orphanages. Now they don’t and he and his family opened an orphanage and somehow were found by Skip from California who donated 5acres of land and built them a building in 2002 which houses up to 100 kids. They currently have 75 there. The kids are fed clothed disciplined, schooled and able to live as normal a life as possible without being forced to survive on their own in the streets, most importantly they feel some love and care. Imagine growing up without any. The ages range from 6 months to 18ish. They love Chucho and his family as showm by many kids who continue to visit once out as adults and its clearly evident that he loves them. Quite a thing to see in poverty stricken country with loads of corruption. keep grounds up nice and have area for activities, growing fruit/veggie, chickens, and cattle etc.view of girls dormbarred windows and big locks on all doorskitchen areawent to a park pickup/party day with kids from their school day in a jungle-ish area, cool interaction If you are anything like me you may be skeptical about charity and donating from watching guys on tv in front of huge crowds asking for money with flickering eyes wearing $50,000 watches in Armani suits. Has always bothered me to know they are living fat off of charity and tells me at least some, probably lot of big charity organization money is going in pocket and not to cause. This is not the case at all in this small chance to help, i guarantee everything that can come of this will be going directly to the orphanage and ultimately directly to the kids safety.

saying goodbye for time being but promised to be back later

As I am half way thru the trip now the idea I think that will work best is try to raise the money thru this blog and email me if you are interested in helping out in anyway(volunteer or donation, both?). My email is mhaley27@yahoo.com Everyday during and at the end of the trip I will tally up all that have emailed and said they will help out on the blog and then go from there on how to get the fence and set up a week or two to go there and build it. Sound good? If you have other suggestions on how to raise some $$ or charity type experience please let me know/ teach me how we might be able to work this in a different or better way.
One suggestion is donate per mile…Ive done around 9000 and have about 10000 left. again, I will continue to update daily as anyone contacts me willing to help out in anyway. I will also start out with my own personal pledge of $1000 toward the fence and my time to go there and build it, thus leaving $14,000 left. Will you help? time?? $1, 5, 10, 100, 1,000, 1,000,000,000 ...anything is something
Please tell anyone you know about this blog/ride/small project to keep some kids from living day to day in poverty stricken streets or stolen and god knows what done to.
They do have a bank account and you could donate if you want to that way but I’d like to keep it simple and get verbal commitments and add it up and combine to buy the fence and make sure every cent goes to it.
The information of Casa Hogar is as follows
Jesus “Chucho” Melchor Torres- Director
Santa Rojas Olmas- Director
Phone---01152127111095494
Address
Casa Hogar Peregrinos de la Palabra de Dios
Carretera Anaranjal
Congregacion 20 de Noviembre
Cordoba, VeraCruz, exico
94480