Save the children

Remember those commercials from the 1980s and 1990s where Sally Struthers implored viewers to help disadvantaged children in developing countries? You know, the ones where she is covered with dozens of malnourished children while she weeps into the camera lens? The ones that taught you that, for the same amount of money you spend on your morning coffee, you could feed and clothe a child, send him/her to school, ensure he/she as a home and a robust collection of G.I. Joe or Barbie dolls?

Well, I was reading a passage in an article that made me think of those commercials:

In the late 1990s, several child sponsorship organizations amended their disclosures after a series of articles in The Chicago Tribune revealed that while they were soliciting money to sponsor a specific needy child, that child was not necessarily receiving the money directly.

Then I remembered the time I called my parents from college and learned that, in an effort to enhance my sister's "community service" credentials, my mother adopted a little Filipina girl named Benalyn in her name. Benalyn's photo stared despondently from our computer keyboard for several years, and I suppose my mother continued to send money to her (or, to an organization that purported to help her) while my sister was in high school.

My friends and I dreamed of the day that Benalyn would show up in California, seeking to be reunited with her generous new mother from the Western world. My sister would be so proud of her young, disadvantaged, Tagalog-speaking daughter and we would all weep with joy at young Benalyn's high school graduation, taking pride in the fact that Lil' Sis' Panda!!!! had given her a second chance at life. We would lovingly embrace her at her extravagant wedding in the US and we would brag when she achieved a top position in Corporate America.

Alas, I wonder what happened to Benalyn and how many other families shared this dream.