Thank you Baja Nomads

toy drive video


The 1st Annual Baja Nomad Dia de Reyes toy drive was a huge success . In the beginning stages for this 1st event I wanted to see first of all what kind of response we would have from the board so I was looking for a group of 50 kids max. The group of children that we found that was more close to that was 65, so when we started we had 65 kids, then it went to 72 and at the end 40 more children were added and these had some sort of disability, some were deaf, mute, some had down sindrome and some were in wheel chairs. Wow, can we do it? 112 kids . Well, thanks to people like you, Baja Nomads, Baja enthusiasts and beautiful humans that you are, we did it. We had well over 250 gifts, from shirts to bicycles, from Mickey and Minnie stuffed dolls to baseball bats and balls, tea sets and Barbies, soccer balls and basket balls, we had all kinds of toys and gifts for all. Well the plan was to come across the day of the toy drive with Nomads and gifts and take them to the children, until Mrs fdt said that we should separate them by ages and gender and avoid a problem when distributing the gifts. Thank god for her, during the last few days before the toy drive, we crossed all the toys to México and it took my wife and kids 2 days to sort the toys out and specialy the ones for kids with some sort of dissability. Friday evening the last toys arrived, some from Yuma, special delivery and some from Las Vegas on California Overnight, wow, wow, wow
We were set, wake up early Saturday, get the bus, load it up, go across to get Nomads, pretty simple huh, no, I forgot about mexican time, bus driver was late . Mrs fdt said she was amased as to how an entire country can go by the same time So by the time we left San Ysidro it was 10:30 so we went to the historical Society and just picked up our special guest Mr. Gilberto Rios and headed up to meet the children. When we got there and got off the bus, we could hear the children's songs comming from the small wooden structure that is theire small chappel, as we entered and I saw all those kids sitting on the benches, singing, wow, gosh, gee, shucks, what a feeling, to me it was so emotional, we did it, they were there and we were there, I was ready to cry.
Beeing the macho mexicano that I am I composed myself and I hoped no one noticed . We went in and were escorted to one side of the little church as the kids started singing Las Mañanitas and then their translation or the only english song they knew they all sang happy birthday . Whitnessing or handing out those gifts was one of the greatest things anyone can experience, beats whale watching . After the toys were passed out, and there were many, it was time for some greeeat tamales with frijolitos and champurrado I wasn't realy hungry because of all the excitement so I only had about 6 tamales 2 plates of frijoles and 3 champurrados, I stoped to save room for the Rosca de Reyes .
From there we took the 40 special kids back to theire meeting place and headed to the comand center were we had to wait till some reporters from México City left and so we were back on schedule (mexican time schedule ) so we skiped the cultural center and headed straight for the LA Cetto wines, when we got there, after some talking we went down to the cellars and then back upstairs for some good vino . From there we went down Constitucion avenue all the way to 2nd and then back up Revolucion were our day ended.
To all of you, MUCHAS GRACIAS, HICIERON FELICES A MUCHOS NIÑOS QUE DE OTRA FORMA NO HUBIERAN TENIDO REGALO, GRACIAS!
January 6, 2008 will be a Sunday, mark you calendars