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One Woman who made a difference |
| The 37-year-old director of government funding for L5 grew up in Puerta de Fe (Door of Faith), an orphanage in La Mision, a small town between Tijuana and Ensenada. Placed there with three younger siblings when she was 7, she spent eight years at the home for children. Her memories of Door of Faith are positive. It gave her a bed of her own and good food every day. It gave her a chance to be a child instead of having to take responsibility for her two younger brothers and a sister while their single mother worked as a tortilla maker for low wages in Ensenada, leaving the house at 5 a.m. and returning at 6 p.m. Hilda Pacheco-Taylor and owners of L5, Michael Beason and Mickey Wiebe, who live in Irvine, California, decided to do something to help the children's home and established the Corazon de Vida Foundation about eight years ago. In the past couple of years, they have expanded their program to match other companies with other children's homes in Baja California Norte. Pacheco-Taylor had not returned to Door of Faith for many years until 1994. When she arrived she was disappointed to find the home had fallen into disrepair and could support only 30 children, not the 90 to 100 who had been there when Pacheco-Taylor was a child. The director told her the orphanage had lost its connection to U.S. support when the missionary couple who helped out retired. Pacheco-Taylor recalled the incident that made her mother decide it was too dangerous to leave her young family during the times she worked. The family lived in a one-room house with dirt floors. The father had abandoned the family. One of the neighbors watched the younger kids when Pacheco-Taylor attended school, but after school she was in charge. She was 7. Her brothers were 5 and 4, and her sister, 3. One afternoon her 5-year-old brother fell into a reservoir near their home. "I was inside trying on a bathing suit. My other brother was screaming and pointing," she said. "He was drowning, and I couldn't do anything to save him." A neighbor arrived home from work and pulled her brother from the water. He was unconscious as they took him to the hospital. "I thought he had died," said Pacheco-Taylor. Her brother survived. But the incident did serve as a wake-up call to their mother. "It was a miracle that any of us survived. It was at that time she realized it was better to take us to the orphanage," Pacheco-Taylor said. Pacheco-Taylor said that she was happy at the orphanage. Her mother visited the children about once a month for a few years until she went to Santa Ana to try and make a better life for herself. "I remember that we each had a very nice bed. Before we slept in one bed," she said. "The food was really good. I continued to be really close to my brothers and sister and try to protect them. But I felt I could be a kid." The staff consisted of dorm parents with a ratio of about 10 kids to one adult. The adults were U.S. missionaries and Mexican nationals. Many of the children stayed long-term at the orphanage like Pacheco-Taylor and her siblings. They moved to new dorm parents as they grew older, but they usually knew the new person in charge. Even with the security of living at the orphanage, Pacheco maintained her dream of getting the family together again with their mother. When she was 15 she had finished the ninth grade and had to make a choice about what to do next - technical school, university preparation, work. She decided to join her mother in Santa Ana. She went north on a one-day visitor's pass and never returned. She tried high school and took a full-time job to help support the family. By the time she was 20, she and her mother succeeded in getting all the other children to join them in Santa Ana. There were three additional younger half-siblings in another orphanage in Ensenada. (The family gained citizenship during the amnesty period in the 1980s). Pacheco-Taylor remained grateful to Door of Faith. But her mother, who died last year after returning to Mexico, could not forgive herself for leaving her children in a home. "She was always torn. She apologized to us her whole life," said Pacheco-Taylor. "I told her, 'Mom, that's the best thing you could ever have done for us.'" |
Motherly Love
As I sat there on the old wooden bench, which
I could tell had been painted almost 10 dirfferent
colors from the paint chippings; I started to wander
off in my mind. The thought of visiting my mom's
old orphanage sent chills up and down my spine. She
spent her childhood here and most of her memories
occurred in the playground in front of me. I looked
around and took in everything around me, from the
squeaky red and blue swings to the old splintered
playhouse. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine
what it would be like to grow up here. My mind
started to slip away from me as my imagination
took hold, when all of the sudden a small clammy
hand pulled me back to consciousness. In front
of me stood a little boy tugging gently at my hands,
his eyes were weary and by the way he extended
his diminutive arms I could tell he wanted me to
pick him up. A warmth came over me as I saw how
happy it made him to just sit on my hip. His little
beady eyes glared up at me and I felt a longing
to keep him forever. He was indeed the cutest child
I had ever seen and his soft smile made me happier
than I had ever been. It suddenly struck me that
he had no parents. How could a precious child be
without the loving care of a nurturing mother?
I gently pulled his head in closer to my chest
as I pressed his tiny body against mine and kissed
him on the head. I wanted him to feel loved, I
wanted him to feel the way I felt when my mother
caressed me, secure. My eyes began to fill with
tears as I wondered what it would be like to be
in his place. I counted my blessings and thanked
the Lord for blessing me with a wonderful mother
and a wonderful life.
Victoria Pacheco