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Generous donations to our general fund have allowed the American Indian Division to construct a new playground at an elementary school in Arizona. This school is in an impoverished area of the Navajo reservation, and its old playground was in an extreme state of disrepair. The children had no safe place in which to play. Now, however, they have a jungle gym and a swing set to enjoy during recess. These photos were taken during the playground's construction: 
Long-time
sponsor Sandy Anderson is celebrating her sixtieth birthday by visiting each of
her four sponsored children. She recently traveled to Appalachia to visit Jennifer, a girl she has sponsored for the past two years. She shared with us her account of her visit.
“Jennifer’s rural county is known for its
beauty and rich cultural heritage. Tourists visit for hiking, camping,
and bluegrass music festivals. Sadly, however, fewer people actually live there
as it also has one of the highest unemployment rates of the state. The
isolation that helps to preserve the region’s natural beauty also means that
resources are limited. Indeed, one of the county’s most distinctive
features is its calm. When I got out of the car at Jennifer’s school
after a 45 minute drive zigzagging up a mountain, I could almost hear the
silence.
It was fun
for us to finally meet. Jennifer was, understandably, a little shy at first, but
we were soon chatting happily. I learned a lot in a short time. Though she
looks like a typical American teenager, loves school, and enjoys spending time
with her friends, there is another side to Jennifer’s story. She doesn’t see
her father, her stepfather is too ill to hold a job, and her mother works night
shifts at a facility an hour from the family’s home. I would guess that
Jennifer’s after-school life is spent looking after her family, including her
adored baby sister.
When the
lunch bell rang, Jennifer ran off, but she saved a place for me at her table, and
proudly introduced me as her “C.I.sponsor.” After lunch, we went to her
history class—six students including two of her siblings! I spoke to them about
living in France while the teacher used the internet to find pictures of the places I was talking about. The internet is a window on the world to these young people. After that, I met the school's music teacher and string band--very well known in the area--and had the fun of singing with them. The music class marked the end of the school day, and it was, regretfully, time to say goodbye.
I knew I was
seeing the school at its best as they welcomed me. I knew there was hardship
hidden behind the smiling faces in the pleasant little mountain school which
tries to provide the way to a better life to its tiny population. And yet it
was hard for me to leave the beauty and the silence.”
Children, Incorporated is extremely grateful to everyone who has contributed to this year's Warm Clothing Fund! Your donations have already allowed us to distribute coats, hats, scarves, gloves, and sleeping bags to hundreds of children throughout the United States.
A project volunteer within our American Indian division sent in several photographs of her students wearing their new winter items.
Kindergarten boys:
Kindergarten girls:
First grade boys: 
These children will now be able to safely play outside during the cold winter months!
The Warm Clothing Fund will extend through the rest of the winter. If you would like to help us in our quest to keep our children warm, you can contribute via the Children, Incorporated website, or you can mail a check marked "Warm Clothing Fund" to:
Children, Incorporated
4205 Dover Road
Richmond, VA 23221
J. Calvitt Clarke, III is a professor of history at Jacksonville University and a member of the board of directors of Children, Incorporated. He shared with us this moving account of his recent visit to the Puente Piedra Girl's Home in Lima, Peru.
"Last Thanksgiving, I presented a paper in Peru’s capital, Lima, at the annual meeting of the Association for Third World Studies. I took advantage of the opportunity to take my fourteen-year-old daughter for sightseeing.
While there, we visited an
orphanage, the Puente Piedra Girl’s Home in Lima. The home serves the needs of
150 girls, ages five to twenty-two, and all are with Children
Incorporated. Our generous
sponsors help
care for 128, and Children Incorporated carries the last 22. With more sponsors, the home could house 30
more children. All the money that comes
through Children Incorporated goes to feed the children.
Puente Piedra is a crime and
drug-infested suburb of Lima. The
neighborhood children and their families suffer from high unemployment,
hyperinflation, the government’s neglectful spending, and broken families. Disease, malnutrition, and abuse have left
Puente Piedra’s children desperately needing care and love. The Girl’s Home offers its children an
opportunity to rise above the limitations of their difficult lives.
Franciscan sisters, who founded the home, also saw a need for a better education for Puente Piedra’s poor, and launched and run the adjacent, state school that all the girls in the orphanage attend. With 1,120 attending, it is the best public school in the area, and local parents, seeking better lives for their children, beg to have them educated there.
Sister Mercedes of the Franciscan Order picked up my daughter and me at our hotel. We entered a van full of flowers and happily animated nuns. They spoke no English, so my pidgin Spanish and gestures had to do and naturally produced much laughter.
The hour-long drive to the
orphanage provided an education. For
drivers, staying in lanes seemed only a mild suggestion. The air was cool, hazy, and humid—typical for
this time of year. In the city, all the
buildings were gray and dirty from air pollution and dust, both of which hung
heavily in the air. The city is trying
to create garden spaces but must irrigate them, because Lima receives almost no
rain.
As we moved out of the city, on either side of the road and not far away, the homes of the poor clung precariously and tenaciously to barren, dusty hills. Along the route, I saw what appeared to be prefabricated homes for families. They looked less like the small sheds sold at Home Depot or Lowes than like less-stylish versions of the small playhouses for children such stores also sell. Dust was everywhere, and while there was a fair amount of construction in and out of the city, most of it languished unfinished.
As we entered the grounds of Puente Piedra Girl’s Home, girls happily rushed up to our van. They eagerly exchange greetings with the nuns.
On the day we visited, we saw a
wonderful example of the difference the orphanage can make for these
girls. My daughter and I attended a
Sunday, baptismal mass for Isabella, the child of Decia Marivel Vicuña Castro. Marivel lived at the home between 1987 and 1997
with her sister after their mother had died. When they arrived, the two were suffering from malnutrition. After ten years Marivel
left the home and
went to Germany as an au pair. There she
married a German, whose family has many contacts in Latin and South America. Marivel’s sister still lives in Lima.
Father Bernardo Byrne, an American and a Maryknoll priest, officiated the mass. He has been at the home for a long time and knew Marivel as a child. He had married the couple in this church the year before.
Beautiful music, especially the girls’ singing, marked the service. The hymnal tones were joyful and the melodies haunting. The sisters and Father Bernardo were as excited to host the baptism as the girls were to participate. Father Bernardo explained to me that, with male machismo smothering women, these girls never see examples of a stable family life. They need to know, he continued, that there is another way to live, where women and men live as equals. He saw the baptism as a life lesson for the girls."
The preschool children at the El Angel daycare center in Santa Cruz, Bolivia recently received a special treat: a field trip to the local zoo! The children of El Angel all come from at-risk families. 100% of them live in poverty, and 90% of them live in households without a father present. They are almost never able to take special trips, so the zoo outing was especially exciting for them.
Group photo at the zoo's entrance:
Exploring the animal exhibits:
Working on a craft project in the zoo's children's center:
Enjoying the zoo's playground:
The El Angel children and the nuns who care for them have repeatedly let Children, Incorporated know how much they appreciate the support of our donors and sponsors. In November, CI staffers Magda Kegley (Director of the Latin American Division) and Ginger Ellis (Director of Organizational Operations) visited several project sites in Central America and South America. When they arrived at El Angel, the children presented them with several cards, including this one:
Each year, the employees of Page Auto Group in Richmond, Virginia make a charitable contribution in honor of Larry Page, the company's owner. They selected Children, Incorporated as the beneficiary of the 2007 donation. In addition to a generous monetary gift to the Warm Clothing Fund, Page Auto staff and customers contributed dozens of warm winter items to children in our Inner City and Appalachian divisions. We are very grateful for this support!
Gail DeFeo, pictured below at center, is the office manager of the Page Auto Group. She coordinated this donation drive. Appalachian Division Director Renee Kube (left) and Inner City Division Director Ron Carter (right) were thrilled to accept Page Auto's gift on behalf of Children, Incorporated: 
A generous donation from the Barry Chappell Fine Art Showcase has allowed Children, Incorporated to make substantial improvements to the Ratnam School in Guntur, India. Before the renovation, the school could accommodate no more than 160 children--now its capacity is greater than 600! In addition to increasing its number of enrolled children, Ratnam will now be able to offer a broader range of subjects.
Elementary school children in class:
