A Noche to Remember Helps Baja Orphans

Hilda Pacheco was 7 when she was handed a responsibility that challenged her own mother: caring for three children--her younger siblings.

She remembers dragging a chair to the stove to cook their meals, overseeing their play, tucking them into bed in their Ensenada home.

“My father left when I was 6,” Pacheco--now 35--explained during the fifth annual Noche de Gala on Saturday to benefit orphanages in Baja California. More than 300 guests attended the black-tie event at the Marconi Automotive Museum in Tustin.

“My mother tried to make ends meet by making tortillas, but it didn’t pay much, so she went to the United States to support us,” said Pacheco, who now lives in Irvine. “I stayed home to watch the kids.”

Miraculously, with the help of a neighbor, Pacheco managed for about a year.

“Then the day came when a brother almost drowned in the family reservoir,” she said. “That’s when we were taken to the Door of Faith Orphanage in La Mision.”

She remembers it as one of the happiest times of her young life. “We had warm meals, warm beds, toys and lots of kids to play with,” she said. “But what I came to enjoy the most were the visits from people from the United States.

“There were groups who came down every year to see us--they knew our names, we knew theirs. They came to do work--paint, build dorms--but they also found time to play with us.”

Eventually, Pacheco’s mother was able to bring her children to the United States. But memories of the orphanage sparked Pacheco’s mission today: raising funds for the ongoing financial support of the Door of Faith, and two other homes for children, the Don Bosco and Olive Tree orphanages, also in Baja.

To that end, Pacheco helped establish the nonprofit Door of Faith Foundation in 1993. “During a return visit five years ago to the Door of Faith orphanage where I had lived, I found they were in desperate need,” she said. “They were down to 30 kids and the buildings were falling apart. It broke my heart to see it that way.”

On Saturday, Pacheco joined with good friend Vicky Wiebe of Irvine--director of funding for the Irvine-based Door of Faith Foundation--to help raise net proceeds of about $50,000 for the orphanages. “Getting involved with this project has changed my life--given it a purpose,” said Wiebe. “I’ve been given the gift of everything. Giving back to the kids of Baja is a way I can return that gift.”

Also among guests: Door of Faith Orphanage directors D.J. and Lynette Schuetze, who got involved with the orphanage while doing missionary work for their church.

The Schuetzes, who are married, have operated the orphanage for nearly six years. “We’re in it for the long haul,” D.J. Schuetze said. “We tell people we’re down there because we’re selfish. We happen to be a couple who loves kids. . . . We get paid in hugs.” For information: (949) 476-1144.

* Tenth benefit tea: When Vickie Moulin found out last year that her 2-year-old son, Jeremy, had leukemia, she “walked about in a daze for months,” she told guests at the 10th annual benefit tea Thursday for the Orange County Ronald McDonald House.

“When you learn your child has cancer, you feel broken and hopeless,” she said.

Volunteers at the Ronald McDonald House helped ease her pain. They cooked for Moulin and her husband, Chuck, while their little boy underwent successful treatment at nearby Children’s Hospital of Orange County. And they made the Murietta couple feel at home. “They meet you at the door, smile at you and know the right thing to say,” Moulin said at the Center Club in Costa Mesa. “They can’t make the situation go away, but they can help you get through it.”

Since it was founded in Orange in 1989, the house for families of children undergoing treatment for life-threatening illnesses has been a home away from home for more than 3,000 families.

“We have 20 bedrooms--each has its own bath facility--a community kitchen, library and family room,” said Patti Widdicombe, a house founder. “We have only two staff members; the rest of the work is done by volunteers.” Net proceeds of $30,000 from the tea will be used for the house’s operations costs, said Widdicombe, who chaired the event with her mother, Gene Widdicombe. For information: (714) 639-3600.

* A visit to O.C.: They made $10,000 when they held their first gala 10 years ago in a private home. Come next May, members of the Center Theatre Group Affiliates--a service group of the Music Center of Los Angeles County--expect to net $500,000 at their biannual Angels’ Night benefit at the Century Plaza Hotel. “It’s the theater event [in Los Angeles],” said Affiliates president Ava Fries of Beverly Hills.

Their secret? “We work,” said Fries. “And we mix theater people with film people.” They also salute big names in the film and theater industries. Honorees have included Neil Simon, Rita Moreno and the late Lloyd Bridges.

At the invitation of South Coast Plaza, the affiliates paid a visit to Orange County last week. Coming by chartered bus from Los Angeles, members toured the Orange County Performing Arts Center, lunched on duck and pear salad at Pinot Provence restaurant and then--you guessed it--shopped at the retail center.

Along for the ride: Louise Taper, wife of Barry Taper (son of Mark Taper). During lunch, Taper confided she’d been on her cellular phone with her husband during the bus trip to Orange County. “He was bidding on an onyx pin and earrings for me at Christy’s” in New York, she explained. “I told him not to go overboard. But he did.”

The original owner of the jewelry? “Mary Todd Lincoln,” whispered Taper, an avid collector of Abraham Lincoln memorabilia.

* Toasting a diva: Feted at a reception following her performance last week in Segerstrom Hall with the Pacific Symphony, former Metropolitan Opera star Frederica von Stade gave the Orange County Performing Arts Center a rave review.

“I love the theater--it’s very beautiful and looks so big from the stage,” the mezzo-soprano said during a party at Morton’s restaurant in Santa Ana. At her side: Mike Gorman, her husband of nine years. “I’m not a big opera fan,” Gorman confessed. “But I love her work--she’s fantastic.”

* Love and marriage: “My husband kept poking me throughout the whole play,” theater buff Olivia Johnson deadpanned following the West Coast premiere Friday of “Dinner With Friends” at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa.

Johnson wasn’t alone. Seems the play by Donald Margulies about the challenges of maintaining wedded bliss hit a nerve. “It hit close to home--covered all the bases,” observed another playgoer. “I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.” Playwright Donald Margulies--a self-proclaimed “happily married man”--said humor was the most important ingredient in his marriage.