Countywide : 1st Lady Accepts Gifts for Country

The First Lady of Guatemala was in Orange County on Tuesday to meet with representatives of the local Guatemalan community and to accept donations of medical supplies from two local hospitals.

Maria Eugenia de Leon Carpio, 48, wife of President Ramiro de Leon Carpio, was awarded the key to the city of Santa Ana at a Board of Supervisors meeting in the morning, then traveled by limousine to the Balboa Bay Club in Newport Beach for lunch overlooking the bay.

Among the gifts she will take back to her homeland are a used firetruck donated by the city of Orange, as well as a wide assortment of medical and office supplies--crutches, wheelchairs, gurneys, desks, typewriters, computers and file cabinets--given by Western Medical Center-Santa Ana and St. Joseph Hospital in Orange.

“The citizens of Guatemala really appreciate all the help,” de Leon Carpio said. “We’re a poor country, and there are many things we do not have.”

The First Lady’s visit was arranged by Orange’s chapter of the international Sister Cities Assn.

“The whole point is to break down barriers and share,” said Jack Ferraro, president of the local branch of the association. “For once, we forget about the differences in government, the differences in religion, the differences in culture and all the other phobias, and help one another out.”

The medical supplies and the firetruck will be shipped to Guatemala by the end of the month, said Steven M. Rosenberg, a foreign affairs adviser.

The First Lady plans to leave the United States on Sunday after a visit to Los Angeles, where an estimated 300,000 Guatemalans live, the biggest concentration in the United States, Rosenberg said.