He was 'living the life'; now he's sharing it with Mexico's orphans
He was 'living the life'; now he's sharing it with Mexico's orphans
BY SAMANTHA DUNN / STAFF WRITER
Published: May 24, 2014 Updated: May 26, 2014 11:40 a.m.
“Mexico is not sexy.”
George Perez says this as he drives his Hyundai south on the 5 from San Juan Capistrano to Tijuana, the vehicle’s blue paint faded after 10 years of weekly trips just like this. Perez manages operations for a tiny nonprofit headquartered in Irvine called Corazón de Vida, or Heart of Life.
“Mexico is where the gardener is from ... the busboy. Mexico is a place we don’t really think much about, even though it’s right next to us.”
But Perez thinks about Mexico. This former owner of a computer consulting company in Los Angeles, this one-time groupie for the Go-Gos, this golfer whose clubs are now gathering dust, this aging Sigma Pi brother from Cal State Northridge, he thinks about Mexico all the time.
More rightly said, he thinks about Mexico’s lost children.
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Somehow, with just the efforts of founder Hilda Pacheco-Taylor, who grew up in a Baja orphanage, a bookkeeper, a passel of volunteers and, for the past 10 years, Perez, Corazón manages to keep the lights on, the gas bill paid and the roof from leaking at 14 private orphanages in and near Tijuana. It might not sound like much, but there are, in all, about 50 orphanages like the ones Perez runs, and those simple necessities are hardly universal.
In Mexico, there’s no funding for foster care. For children of parents too poor to feed or clothe them, or of parents who go to El Norte to find work, or for those who’ve suffered abuse too awful to think about, the choice is to try to live on the street like gatos callejeros, alley cats, or to be put in a casa hogar, a privately run home, the quality and safety of which vary wildly because there is no central source of funding or oversight.
More:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/perez-615585-kids-mexico.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
Once they've evolved into people, ##### 'em. Their moms can get two, three, four jobs, with the children strapped to their backs, apparently, as there's no money they'd want to spend on child-care, either.
You recall Republican congressswine also have suggested, starting with pig-faced Newt Gingrich, that the children work as janitors in their schools while their schoolmates watch, to deserve to eat school lunches.
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What do you think Newt would do if someone handed him a broom? Is he more important than a helpless child? I don't think so. Evil putz.