For Dying Children, a Home

In September 1990, the Rev. John Walmsley set out with a small band of his parishioners from St. Laurence’s Church in London to deliver four truckloads of food, clothing, medical supplies, and other aid to Romania, which was just emerging from decades of Communist rule. What they found appalled them.

In orphanages across the country, gaunt and listless children abandoned by their parents and neighbors were living in squalor and misery. Many were infected with HIV as a result of blood transfusions, but had no access to medical treatment and were ostracized by their local society.

Out of that searing experience was born Children in Distress, a British charity that helps orphans and sick and abandoned children. In 1992, the group opened the 100-bed St. Laurence’s Children’s Hospice in Cernavoda, Romania, where children with AIDS (and more recently, cancer) live and play — and too often die. The staff and volunteers provide comforting smiles and hugs along with medical care.

The organization, which last year also opened a children’s hospital in Albania, has an annual budget of about $1.5-million — nearly all of which is donated.