It may seem like a walk through the park, or the garden, to collect the free food, clothing and toys at Saint Andrew's Clinic, but for the hundreds of families that participate each month, the stroll isn't quite so easy.

An amusement park-style line stretches out from behind the gates of St. Andrew's Garden of Twelve Holy Apostles and around the church, full of impatient but hopeful children, some standing, some in strollers, some in wheelchairs.

A common future binds them together in their purgatory: the collecting of goodies and toys that are so desperately needed.

It may not seem very exciting to us, but it is a momentous fantasy for the children of St. Andrew's. So they wait until that truthful time when they get let in the gates, three or four at a time, and get to peruse and play with the buffet of items.

For 6-year-old Victor Rafael - a first grader from Nogales, Son., Mexico, who was visiting the clinic after a car crash damaged his ankle - the food and clothing provided by the clinic volunteers were not as much of an occasion as the toys were.

Victor did not speak English, but watching him play, carefree, while the adults were caught up in more pressing matters, communicated in a language unspoken: the language of the imagination.






Watch the video below to see Victor in the Gardern of Twelve Holy Apostles.





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