Orphans Get a Lifeline From Rotary Club

By nearly all measures, John Whitmore and Sheri Polak have led prosperous lives--they’ve retired from successful careers, raised children, traveled the world and served their communities.

Now in their late 60s, Whitmore and Polak have no plans to quietly live out their golden years. Instead, the longtime friends are the driving force behind an outreach project that collects and distributes food, clothing, toiletries, medicine and money to Mexican orphans.

As members of the Woodland Hills Rotary Club, a community service organization, Whitmore and Polak for the last six years have coordinated the group’s visits to Door of Faith Orphanage, a residential facility for disabled and able-bodied abandoned children in La Mision, Baja California.

There, Southern Californians D.J. and Lynette Schuetze look after 110 children, whose ages range from 6 weeks to 18 years. The sprawling ranch is dotted with buildings connected by wheelchair ramps and is set around a courtyard with brightly painted swings and jungle gyms.

“We are a family here,” D.J. Schuetze said. “We have groups of five and six siblings that the social workers bring to our door. We take them in and make them part of our family.”

Although the Rotarians have supported the orphanage for nearly three decades, their commitment deepened last spring when a popular 17-year-old quadriplegic boy, Carlitos, died and the orphanage struggled to pay his funeral expenses.

“He was a boy who had been there for a long time,” Whitmore said. “He had wormed his way into everyone’s heart.”

With renewed energy, the Rotarians figured they could gather and give more supplies if they asked others to pitch in.

The group turned to El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, where students collected enough rice, beans, disposable diapers, laundry detergent, toilet paper and other items to fill a classroom.

The supplies were delivered to the orphanage in early August.

A few weeks after the students’ delivery, a dozen Rotarians arrived at the orphanage in three cars loaded with milk, butter, hot dogs, cleaning supplies and other items, Polak said.

The Rotarians greeted the children and immediately fired up a grill to cook hot dogs for 60 youths before the youngsters had to leave for an afternoon session of school.

“When we go there, it’s like a big party,” Polak said. “The kids are singing and playing and talking to us. They get to show off their good manners and practice their English.”

Door of Faith is a private facility that relies on donations to keep its doors open, Whitmore said.

The orphanage has no other means to generate income to cover its monthly expenses for electricity, food, gasoline and other necessities.

Rotarians wanted to give the orphanage commercial washers and dryers to clean the 50 loads of laundry that pile up each day, but the orphanage can’t afford to pay for the electricity.

The facility received a walk-in refrigerator, but it doesn’t have the money to keep it stocked, Polak said. “As we went through the food in the refrigerator, there were hot dog buns, carrots, potatoes, onions, eggs and 10 pounds of chicken that looked awful--like it had gone bad and someone gave it to them to get rid of it. There was nothing to make a meal.”

The children at the orphanage are ferried to schools throughout Tijuana and, with round-trips to three different schools every weekday, the Schuetzes struggle to keep gas in the orphanage’s bus, Whitmore said. “The kids can go to school, but they need money for gas, uniforms and school supplies.”

Even after arranging donations, or writing out checks beforehand, Rotarians who visit the orphanage are moved to give a little more on the spot.

“On a past trip, we were about to leave, and I said, ‘Did D.J. say he only had $105 in the bank?’ ” Polak recalled. “The men reached into their pockets and left money on the side of the kitchen sink. I was so moved by that.”

Whitmore said his goal is to get all 66 members of the local club to live out Rotary International’s motto of “service above self” by visiting the orphanage at least once.

“When members get to the orphanage, you see the change in them,” he said. “They have an ‘Aha!’ experience because they make a personal connection with the children and they want to help even more.”

Extending a helping hand across the U.S.-Mexican border has proved a challenge on more than one occasion as Mexican border patrol officers have questioned club members about the items they tried to take to the orphanage, Whitmore said.

“One time, we were trying to bring steaks to the children, and a border patrol officer demanded them,” Whitmore said.

“One of our members said, ‘If you really want to take one, go ahead, but a child will go without.’ The officer let us through.”

Another time, border patrol officers stopped the Rotarians from bringing a truckload of school desks into the country, Whitmore said. While a few members stayed with the truck, others crossed over and returned with children from the orphanage who carried the desks across the border one at a time.

“When we take money and food to the orphanage, we know that we are helping the children directly,” Polak said. “It’s a selfish thing to go there because you feel so good when you help.”

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For information about the Woodland Hills Rotary Club, call (818) 702-0083 or visit www.whrotary.org.