Children’s Funds Purchase Heir to Silverina the Cow

They held lemonade sales. They washed cars. They donated baby-sitting money.

Finally, a group of children from Rancho Santa Margarita and Trabuco Canyon have raised $350 to buy a new calf for a family whose 33-year-old cow, Silverina, died last month.

A 400-pound female calf with “little nubby horns” will be delivered to the two-acre farm of Charlie and Anita Martinez this weekend, along with an oak tree the children will plant to shade the animal.

Many neighborhood kids walked past Silverina every day on their way to Robinson Ranch Elementary School.

After the cow’s death, the children placed a banner that read: “Where is Silverina the Second?”

“The kids really wanted to pay for the calf,” says Trabuco Canyon resident Lynn Ledford, whose 10-year-old daughter Jamie helped organize the fund-raising effort along with her friend Ashley Mattal.

The children, who call themselves True-Blue Kids, raised about $200.

More money was raised through donations from local businesses and residents who saw posters in storefronts.

The group enlisted a local rancher to buy the cow at auction for them.

He told Ledford that a cow with horns like Silverina would be hard to come by.

Ledford told him to “just find us a young cute one.”

Judging from the tiny stumps on the calf’s head, they may have gotten lucky.

The children have named the calf “Baby.”

Two local veterinarians have volunteered their services, and Morris Feed store has donated an initial supply of hay, according to Ledford.

Anita and Charlie Martinez, 91 and 89 respectively, have other animals including a goat, eight chickens and a rooster.

The children now have another project in mind: building a small shelter in the corral for Baby.