Naugatuck:The black and white photographs lining a table on one side of the St. Michael’s Episcopal Church hall are snapshots of what drives Bryan Nurnberger.
There’s Ignacio, a blind boy who lives at Casa Hogar, a struggling Mexican Orphanage with 80 children, many of whom have special needs. A photo taken by Nurnberger shoes Ignacio with his arms wrapped around a tree. Nurnberger writes that an unexplained sith sense allows the boy to climb trees and avoid discarded toys on the ground.
A few photos away is Madai, a student and a dorm mother, but a child herself, according to the caption Nurnberger wrote. In her arms is a wailing baby, who was a malnourished nine pounds when she was left at the orphanage three years ago. The baby had an open cleft palate infection that was so serious she was given no chance of surviving; now she and Madai are inseparable, Nurnberger wrote.
Some of the pictures are heart wrenching: an unnamed baby with tussled hair left in the dirt by a mother who “couldn’t afford a bar of soap.” Others are bittersweet: two kindergarten girls, best friends, washing their clothes by hand and smiling.
“They’re living at a level that we just can’t, in good conscience, let exist,” Nurnberger said Friday during the launch of a new fundraising effort for the orphanage in Oaxaca.
For his part he is doing everything he can to change the conditions at the orphanage. A borough resident, Nurnberger is president of Simply Smiles, a non profit organization dedicated solely to improving the orphanage.
Nurnberger spent two months at the orphanage after hearing about it from a friend. Last summer he brought the orphanage a yellow bus filled with medical supplies, toiletries, clothing, toys, and eighty individually personalized quilts for each child. Bogged down in the bureaucracy of the Mexican Government, the bus trip took eight months to complete.
Friday night during a reception in the church hall, Simply Smiles began its sponsorship campaign.
The campaign extends beyond the $15 to $120 a month a person can send a child, Nurnberger said. With only 58 children on the list, a sponsor can foster a personal relationship with a child, he said.
They can send e-mails and other correspondence, and exchange videos. The idea is to let the children know that someone cares that they exist, Nurnberger said. It will give them hope, he said.
Louis and Nancy Dougbartey of Naugatuck have know Nurnberger, a 1995 graduate of Naugatuck High School, since he was a child. “It’s just amazing what he has done” Nancy said.
The Dougbaartys didn’t leave the event empty handed. They left with a manila envelope after sponsoring a child.
They sponsored twelve year old Leomar. The picture of him sitting on a pile of rocks moved them. Nurnberger described Leomar in the photo’s caption as he most unassuming boy who stays out of the way and watches.
Nurnberger himself is passionate about the children of Casa Hogar. So much so, that he agonizes over every detail of the project, even what color various things should be.
But if Simply Smiles brings the orphanage to an acceptable economic level, Nurnberger said, the group will move on to another project. “Unfortunately, we’ll never run out of projects,” he said.
