One Person 

By TAD BARTIMUS

In this holiday season, when we're urged to help the truly needy, the Texas Rangers are giving Alex Rodriguez $252 million to play baseball. 

Hearing this news, I felt the need to go see my 93-year-old friend Anna Downing. She was sitting in her usual rocking chair by the window, crocheting her third stocking cap of the day and listening to the birds. 

"I got another 'thank you' letter," she said excitedly.
"Dear Clothing Contributor," it began, "Thank you so much for your generous contribution to the street children of Bucharest ... " For months, Anna has been sending hundreds of crocheted caps to ARCHWAY, Inc., which gives them to homeless Romanian kids living in sewers and abandoned buildings. 

ARCHWAY was founded by Susan Booth, a 50-year-old railroad conductor who takes tickets on a commuter train between New York City's Grand Central Station and Connecticut. In 1989, the West Haven, Conn., woman saw a TV program about Romanian orphans abandoned when communism collapsed; she vowed to help.

Switching to the night shift, she earned a master's degree in social work and went to Bucharest on a week's vacation in 1996. Stumbling around with only a short list of contacts, she finally got lucky -- the last man on the list knew how to find the kids in the sewers.

"In that sewer, I found my life's work," she said, setting out to prove, once again, that one person can change the world.

With the help of many of her regular commuters, Ms. Booth founded ARCHWAY - Abandoned Romanian CHILDREN'S WAY.

"The government said, 'Oh, we don't have to care about these kids, they're gonna die,'" she said. "But they didn't die. The biggest loss these children had was a loving parent to raise them, but somehow, they're growing up, naked and starving, to become illiterate, with no crafts or skills, no health care. Now some are starting to rob and steal, use heroin, have their own babies in the sewers. It's becoming a multi-generational tragedy."

Operating out of her small condominium and a post-office box, Booth solicits pants, shoes, coats, blankets and sheets and receives "everything from three crumpled $1 bills in an envelope to a $10,000 check from Tennessee." Grants have come from the Ronald McDonald House Charities, which gave her $76,000 in 1999 and has just approved her for another $96,100, and a Florida family's foundation, which gave $30,000.

ARCHWAY has bought two small houses. One has a soup kitchen from which volunteers take food to about 500 street and sewer kids every week. ARCHWAY also buys groceries for squatter families who cook in abandoned buildings. It employs eight Romanians, including a young woman just out of medical school. Ms. Booth goes back and forth as her vacation time permits. 

Like hundreds of other donors, my friend Anna, who's sent knitted and crocheted clothes to charities for years, read about Susan Booth's crusade in a magazine. Her crochet needles really began to fly. 

"It's a great reason to get up in the morning, gives me a sense of purpose," she said. "From the time I was a little child growing up in Missouri, I was taught to do something for the less fortunate and to be grateful for what I have."
Anna lives with her daughter, a hairdresser, in Hawaii. She used to walk to the ocean, but age has narrowed her routine to a pretty bedroom and a sunny back porch. She considers herself rich in friends and, she says, compared to the kids in the sewers, she's a millionaire!

"When I give an article of clothing to a street child, they hold it up and ask, 'America?' and I say, 'Yes, America!'" Susan Booth said. "When they get something handmade, it stuns them that people such as Anna, living in such a rich country as ours, would take the time to give them something."

How does Ms. Booth feel when she hears about Alex Rodriguez being paid a quarter of a billion dollars to play baseball?

"Like I wish he knew about us," she said. "Maybe he's a nice guy with a big heart. Maybe he'll help the kids."
It is the season of miracles.

(Write Susan Booth c/o ARCHWAY, Inc., P.O. Box 26162, 75 Farwell Street, West Haven, CT 06516-9998, or e-mail her at archwaykids@aol.com).


© 2000 The Women Syndicate

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