|
PLEASE READ ON:
On Sat. Oct. 15, 2005, a reunion was held at St. Agatha Home
for Children, in Nanuet, NY. For the last time, the grown up Home
Kids who lived as children there, filed into the chapel pews for
mass. They looked around as they did so many years ago, and knew
that soon, this building, erected in 1899, will once again become
a pile of bricks in 2007.
The book, "Home Kids, The Story
of St. Agatha Home for Children," chronicles the history
of how and why St. Agatha Home came into being. What alternatives
were there for tens of thousands of children living on the streets
when parents died or abandoned them, or became too sick with yellow
fever, cholera, and TB to care for themselves even? Most of them
were immigrants who came from a distant land to see a chance,
for freedom, for life. In America, the streets were not paved
in gold as they had heard. They were disease ridden, crowded and
dirty. The few jobs that were available barely kept them alive.
Their babies died. Mamas died. Breadwinners died.
World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean
Conflict, Viet Nam, drugs, racism, the problems changed from decade
to decade. But the babies, the children, the helpless were always
there. St. Agatha Home opened to help as many of the children
as possible. At first there were four little orphaned sisters
and three nuns. By the end of the month there were 45 little girls,
then 150, all in the same tiny little house, the Little Flower
House. Two years later the boys began to arrive. More and more
children kept arriving until 2005. Then, no more children came,
and most of those who were there were sent to live in foster homes
and group homes. But, they still need care, they still need money
to take care of them. The sale of this book, Home Kids,
will help some. These words by an anonymous author were as true
in 1884 as they are today;
"A hundred years from now it will
not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived
in, or the kind of car I drove ... But the world may be different
because I was important in the life of a child." You can
help too by buying the book to generate funds for the kids.
|
Mail
To: