Readers’ generosity brings aid and comfort to South Florida’s neediest
Wish Book entered its second giving season amid a pandemic. With the holidays’ new surge in COVID cases, would the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald readers have the energy to step up and help some of their most challenged neighbors the way they have for 40 years?
We know from the past readers certainly have the heart. And the need certainly was there.
Since Thanksgiving, in partnership with journalism students at Florida International University, we’ve shared some of their stories.
“We were introduced to a grandmother raising seven children, a teenager in foster care with a wish for a family, a young boy in need of a medical device and many, many more with stories reminding us to be grateful and to show each other more kindness,” said Monica Richardson, executive editor of the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald.
As Miami Herald Charities wraps up another Wish Book season, the 2021 edition has so far raised $340,367 plus in-kind donations, said Roberta DiPietro, Wish Book coordinator.
Money raised
“This year was pretty much in line with a typical year,” said DiPietro. (You can still donate here.)
Though the $340,367 raised this season fell short of the $496,260 raised by Wish Book in 2020, DiPietro calls last year — the first Wish Book held during a pandemic — “an outlier” and not really conducive to comparisons. A better comparison may be the contributions of previous years: $322,788 in 2019; $360,102 in 2018; and $315,753 in 2017.
“This year was a typical year, showing that people are coming out of the pandemic, traveling and spreading their charitable initiatives,” DiPietro said. “Usually when a national tragedy happens close to the season our generous donors support recovery efforts. This year the Kentucky tornadoes were devastating and we know that our donors reached out to those in need there.”
The year 2021 was also marked by some notable anniversaries among local charities: the 40th anniversary of Wish Book and the 10th anniversary of The Miami Foundation’s Give Miami Day, which raised a record $33.4 million for South Florida nonprofits in November, nearly double the 2020 total of $18 million.
“This year’s Wish Book reiterated that a meaningful life and prosperous communities are not built by materialistic things, power, nor politics. To the contrary, through the people and families profiled this year we saw that we can only be full and content when we are able to share ourselves and touch the lives of others. This year’s Wish Book taught us about humility and grace under pressure,” said Richardson.
Wish Book requests
The wish requests varied from simple toys for the holidays to housing, home renovations and accessible vehicles, according to DiPietro. Many of the nominees’ wishes are still pending. Some of these needs include furniture, medical services and equipment, handicap-accessible vehicles and home modifications, appliances and educational support.
“Amid a pandemic that just won’t stop, people still opened their wallets for the Herald’s Wish Book,” Richardson said. “Over the years, our readers have responded generously and I’m grateful that this year the giving continued even during the pandemic. It truly gives me a sense of hope.”
Here are some of the people readers learned about through Wish Book in 2021.
▪ Orlando Bello, who turned 91 on Christmas Day, was born in Cienfuegos, Cuba. In 1980 he moved to Miami to become his mother’s caregiver when his older brother died. Bello lives alone in a small North Miami apartment and hasn’t seen his wife or family since 1980 — though he speaks with them by phone daily.
Bello fractured his femur a year ago and has no one to help him with his mobility.
His apartment’s air conditioner and stove both stopped working.
An anonymous donor has provided Bello with a stove and an AC unit, DiPietro said. Another person is donating a microwave and utensils. The work will be completed in about two weeks.
▪ Taylor Quinones, 29, has Down syndrome and lives with her mom, Tonya Morrison, in Pompano Beach. Before the pandemic made them stay home, they loved sharing adventures and Florida Panthers games together. Also because of the pandemic, Morrison has been unemployed since July 2020 after 44 years with the insurance industry.
Quinones yearns for a trip to swim with the dolphins in Key Largo. Morrison hopes for help with household bills and for her daughter to swim with the dolphins.
A donor group has paid for the $760 dolphin trip, DiPietro said. Quinones plans to wait until her birthday in March to take the trip.
“No matter what it is, whenever they receive any help, they’re always so appreciative and they are just wonderful people,” Jeannie DeMarzo of the Danielle DeMarzo Foundation, which nominated Morrison and Quinones for Wish Book, told the Herald.
▪ Angel Alvarez, 15, is autistic and was diagnosed with pectus excavatum, commonly known as a sunken chest, which is a congenital deformity of the chest wall that causes the ribs and sternum to grow inward, according to Nemours Children’s Health. An eighth-grade trombone player in the Apollo Middle School band, Angel lives in Pembroke Pines with his mom, Yesenia Valdez, and his 5-year-old sister, Xochitl, who is also autistic.
Invasive surgery is not recommended until one’s body is fully developed. One treatment that has helped Angel is his Vacuum Bell device, a suction cup-like apparatus with a hand-held pump that can help pull the chest and breastbone forward. The device can help with breathing and reduce pain.
Angel needs a new Vacuum Bell, but Medicaid won’t cover the cost of the device that ranges from $250 to $400.
Donors have come forward to help pay for the Vacuum Bell, along with Legos and Publix gift cards, DiPietro said.
▪ Andre Amador, 30. When a social worker asked Amador what he wanted for Christmas, he could only think of his mother’s well-being. María Rosario has breast cancer that recurred and spread to her bones. The spreading disease has immobilized her left leg.
“A wheelchair for my mom,” Amador told his caseworker.
That would make a difference. Amador was born with a mental impairment and is the sole provider for his family through his job at Goodwill in Allapattah.
Catherine Miranda, a social worker at Goodwill, told the Herald, “He’s extremely selfless. I think his life is his mom. He loves his mom.”
DiPietro said a wheelchair is being donated.
▪ The Gordon family.
In April, 20-year-old Ayana Singh was murdered in front of her two children in their Deerfield Beach home by an estranged boyfriend who then killed himself.
Melissa Gordon, Singh’s mother and grandmother of Clyde, 5, and Aaron, 3, is now “determined to ensure that the children are counseled and taught how to deal with their grief in a healthy and positive way,” said Phyllis Harris, who nominated the family for Wish Book through Broward Health’s Kinship Cares Initiative.
Eight months later, in mid-December, the Miami Seaquarium hosted the boys and Gordon for a day of exhibits and special events. “It had such a profound effect on them,” DiPietro said.
“This is the first Christmas without their mom, so we plan to keep a smile on their face and help them light up. My heart smiles. They don’t have many moments like this, so this was a big, big thing for them,” Gordon told CBS4, which broadcast their story.
Touching images
It’s these images, and so many others, that particularly touched the Herald’s executive editor this season.
“What stood out to me were the smiles captured in their photos,” Richardson said. “They showed us how to smile in the face of challenge that appears insurmountable. A lesson we can all take into the new year.”
