Torrance, CA (November 29, 2016): This holiday season, Bishop Montgomery's Concordia Club "adopted" 70 children from the Casa Hogar de Niñas Santa Maria de Guadalupe orphanage in San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora Mexico. Through monetary donations and the Bishop students’ own giving, Concordia was able to provide the orphans with many needed items.
Each child received shoes, socks, a pair of pajamas, a sweatshirt, and personal toiletries. The Concordia students bundled the items, so that each child could open their own Christmas bag full of gifts. For the past two years, students shopped for only girls because it was a single-sex home, but this year they also shopped for boys, as 25 of the children on the gift list were young boys. “This was the first year that they have boys at the orphanage. [They are] mainly the siblings that the Sisters did not want to separate,” says BMHS Spanish teacher and Concordia moderator Laura Fabbri.
In addition to the gifts, Fabbri notes that each year Concordia makes an effort to “send the presents in a nice bag, so the children can keep those as well.” She also says that this annual project has become a mainstay on Concordia’s outreach calendar and is something the Bishop students look forward to each holiday season. “They get so much out of this project, sometimes I think more joy than the children receiving the gifts.”
Sister Margaret O'Farrell and other volunteers from Covenant House Los Angeles drove the gift bags to Mexico, along with other supplies for the orphanage. They delivered the gift bags to the children over the Thanksgiving holiday on Bishop's behalf.
Pictured at right: Concordia students show Principal Rosemary Libbon some of the gift bags before sending them to Sonora.