By Ellie Shalvarjian
Staff Writer
Mira Costa sophomore Kara Milewski has taken her passion for helping children in need to the Maison de Lumiere orphanage in Haiti.
Milewski originally started interacting with children at the Maison de Lumiere orphanage six years ago via mail correspondence through the Child Hope International organization that works to connect Christian missionaries with young orphans and provide basic materials for people in third-world countries. She organized a coin drive in elementary school, raising over $4000 to donate to the orphanage. This past February, Milewski visited the orphanage with her mother, Sheri Milewski, to donate supplies and spend time with the children. Milewski now plans on creating a club at Costa where Costa students will correspond with children from the orphanage.
“The Haitian people were abundant in happiness and generosity and through spending time at the orphanage it gave me a new perspective on how quality of life can increase without material objects,” Milewski said. “I also was able to gain a newfound appreciation for all the blessings we have in the states”
Since Milewski started working with the Child Hope International organization in 2010, Milewski has sponsored a 10-year-old Haitian girl named Daphne. Milewski sends Daphne monetary donations along with the letters she writes to her.
“Daphne is the sweetest kid I’ve ever met,” Milewski said. “When I finally got to meet her after all these years of correspondence, the bond between us was incredible and it felt like I had known her my entire life.”
When Kara and Sheri Milewski visited Haiti this past ski week, they brought shampoo, soap, lotion, toothbrushes and other daily essential items to the children at the Maison de Lumiere orphanage.
“My mom and I stayed as positive as possible, but it was extremely difficult to see firsthand the impoverished state the Haitian people were living in,” Milewski said. “There was trash burning on every street and most lived in cardboard homes without any protection.”
Milewski said it was difficult to stay at the orphanage because of its impoverished state. However, a lot of the country of Haiti would consider the conditions at Maison de Lumiere a luxury due to the financial support the orphanage gains from patrons in the states.
“It was difficult to return home and see the stark contrast between the lives of those in my community and the Haitian people,” Milewski said. “Suddenly, what clothes to buy or what car I had no longer seemed important.”
During the week, the Milewskis volunteered daily at local Haitian service centers, such as a pregnancy center. In addition, three times during the week of their visit, the they went to a feeding program run through a nonprofit called Beyond the Bowl. For the nonprofit, volunteers visited the surrounding communities and passed out meals to over 100 children. When Kara and Sheri Milewski were not busy with volunteering, they spent their time playing soccer and coloring with the Maison de Lumiere children.
“The feeding program was my favorite part because I got to be with all the kids from outside the orphanage,” Milewski said. “It was incredible to see how many lives the orphanage is touching, not just the 20 living there, but the entire surrounding community as well. I firmly believe that they are making a strong impact on the way the kids are growing up as they give them a newfound hope and instill a high self confidence in them.”
To further impact the lives of these children, Kara Milewski is planning on creating a club at Costa to help Maison de Lumiere, but the club has not yet been formally established. Milewski and her friends have started raising money through self-funding so that if the club becomes official, it will have sufficient funding to plan events right away.
“I came back from Haiti with a longing to help out in any way I could, that’s what fueled the idea of the club and I used my passion for the kids to inspire others to join and help the cause,” Milewski said. “I wanted people to fall in love with the kids as much as I did, and I am confident that when they actually start sending letters back and forth, they will.”
The club’s main focus will be sending care packages to the kids at Maison de Lumiere. Those packages will include baking materials, art supplies and necessities for the kids. Additionally, each member will choose a child at the orphanage to be pen pals with by looking at profiles from the orphanage and picking the child the Costa students resonate with the most.
“This club will be unique because you get the opportunity to connect with someone who lives an extremely different life,” sophomore Breegan Knudson said. “I’m really excited to create a friendship with someone who I would have never met if it weren’t for this club.”
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