Abby Nadeau
Staff Writer

We've all seen the commercials of the little boy or girl who is dressed in rags looking at a TV camera with their big sad eyes.

The children are usually in dire need of help due to a lack of food, water, shelter or education. The commercial asks its viewers for their help in sponsoring a child for just 80 cents a day.

The viewer may ask themselves, "only 80 cents a day? Is that really possible?"

If you ask Marcy Wirth of Scandia, she would say yes, definitely.

Antonio

Wirth, a Scandia Elementary School teacher, has been sponsoring a young boy through the Christian Children's Fund for the last 10 years.

For $25 a month Wirth has seen her sponsored child, Hector Antonio Maza Barrientos grow from the age of two to 12.

Wirth, who has sponsored other children in the past, said she chose to sponsor another child because "we have to take care of each other's children."

"We have to reach out to any one, any way we can," Wirth said. "This is my faith in action. This is not a hard thing to do."

Antonio, as Wirth calls him, is being raised in southern Mexico by his grandmother Florence. Florence, 60 and a respected elder, has a heart condition that limits the amount of work she can contribute to the household.

Together the two live in a one room hut and sleep on mats placed on their dirt floor with no electricity or running water.

Antonio's mother works in another village to make more money for the family. Unfortunately nothing is known about his father.

Antonio also has a grandfather who works as a farmer far from the village. Together the two earn $70 a year.

Since money is extremely tight in the family and Antonio is the only other person who can help provide for his grandmother, he has many responsibilities.

He alone fishes for their dinners and tends to their six chickens and three turkeys.

"He fishes every Sunday to provide meat for his family," Wirth said.

He is also responsible for finding the wood to keep their stove burning so they can cook food.

While this may seem like an overwhelming task for anyone, much less a 12 year old child, Antonio does have a few friends like the CCF and Wirth that have helped him over the years.

The CCF

CCF is an organization that focuses on six comprehensive programs for the well being of children including health and sanitation, nutrition, early childhood development, micro enterprise development, emergency relief and education.

According to a CCF brochure, the organization works with the children by "supporting locally led initiatives that strengthen families and communities, helping them overcome poverty and protect the rights of their children."

Through CCF a child can be sponsored for $24 a month. The money from the sponsorship allows the child to receive basic necessities like "nutritional screenings, educational assistance, nourishing meals, clean water, medical and dental care" and other items that would otherwise be neglected.

Since 1938 CCF has helped over 4.6 million children and provided more than $1.8 billion in services to children, with "most of the funding coming from individual contributors."

Not only does the CCF help its children and families, it also allows the sponsors to meet their "child" and learn more about their culture. The CCF offers study tours for people who wish to meet their sponsored child in their homeland.

"A Study Tour is really a big ëfamily reunion.' Sponsors have the opportunity to meet a sponsored child that has become part of their extended family," said Gary Duncan, assistant director for marketing at CCF, who also runs the study tours. "The emotions of these meetings are powerful both for the child and the sponsor. Some sponsors tell us that a Study Tour becomes a life-changing and life defining moment for them."

In the fall of 2006 Wirth was able to participate in a Study Tour to Mexico and take seven days to visit Antonio.

"God did this," Wirth said. "I had wanted to visit him for many years and I've prayed to be able to go there."

Within weeks Wirth received a "beautiful" postcard that talked about the Study Tour opportunity.

And on November 11, 2006 Wirth landed in Morelia, Mexico.

However, she didn't land empty handed.

Antonio's audience

"He is so a part of my family," Wirth said.

And just like anyone who talks about their family, many people at Scandia Elementary know about Antonio, especially Wirth's second grade students.

So, when the students learned that Wirth would be able to meet Antonio, they decided to give him a few gifts from Minnesota.

All the students decided to contribute items, like a backpack with paper, a basketball, a calculator, notebooks and other items, to Wirth who would in turn give them to Antonio.

Although Wirth was not able to visit Antonio's specific village, she was able to sit and talk with him about his homelife.

Wirth figured she traveled about 11 hours, through plane and bus rides, to visit Antonio and when she spoke to him, it took him just as long to reach her.

The two were able to meet and speak, with the help of an interpreter, for one afternoon on the tour.

"We got there at 10 a.m. and we left at 3 p.m.," Wirth said with a smile. "I tell ya, I got my money's worth. It was just the best tour ever."

During the meeting Wirth and Antonio played games, ate lunch and talked.

"When I met him it was the most amazing thing ever," Wirth stated.

Wirth was among five Minnesotans taken to visit their sponsored children in Mexico. Following her meeting with Antonio, Wirth was interviewed by KSTP's Jason Davis.

Davis is the star of the show "On the Road With Jason Davis."

"He asked me what I learned," Wirth said. "And what I learned was that money is not enough."

Wirth added that she fully believes in the idea that it takes a village to raise a child and that sometimes money is not enough. It is a concept Wirth is familiar with because she has fostered 11 children and helped a man from Ethiopia get started in the United States.

When Wirth returned to Minnesota and brought the stories of her time with Antonio, her students decided they wanted to do more.

So this holiday season, instead of exchanging gifts for each other, the students decided to raise money to send to Antonio.

In total, Wirth's class of 17 collected $217.21 to send to Antonio as their holiday gift. Roughly 10 to 11 pesos equal to one U.S. dollar. Wirth stated that she was going to suggest in her letter to him to try and purchase a goat with the money.

Wirth, along with four other Minnesota sponsors, will be featured during the television show "On the Road With Jason Davis," this Sunday, Jan. 7 at 10:30 p.m. on KSTP's Channel 5.

For information about the CCF visit www.ChristianChildrensFund.org or learn more about sponsoring a child call 1-800-776-6767.

Top of Page