Table of Contents A Message from

A Message from Msgr. Kevin Sullivan 2 Monsignor Kevin Sullivan Protecting and Nurturing Children & Youth As Catholic Charities celebrates our centennial of service this year, A Garden Helps Heal a Family 4 2017, we want to thank our partner, The New York Times Neediest

Page 4 Chipping Away at a List of Goals, & Bonding Over Cupcakes 5 Cases Campaign, for helping us spotlight and support New Yorkers who need our help most. A Dream That Survived Life in a War Zone & Life on the Streets 6 For the past 100 years Catholic Charities has been providing help Feeding the Hungry and Sheltering the Homeless and creating hope with compassion and dignity for non-Catholics and Catholics alike in New York City and its neighborhoods, the Hudson A Car Accident Throws a Productive Life Into Turmoil 8 Valley and its communities. Stepping Out on Faith, a Blind Man Counts His Blessings 9 The diversity of our population is complimented by the varied Giving Up ‘Mostly Everything’ to Care for His Wife 10 sectors that form the bedrock of this great metropolis. Through a vibrant network of services and programs we’ve helped our neighbors in need rise up Page 10 Strengthening Families and Resolving Crises to better lives. Dangers Behind and Uncertainties Ahead, but Together at Last 12 I invite you now to meet some of these neighbors here in the special centennial Raising 5 Sons Alone, 3 with Autism, Takes a Toll on a Mother’s Body 13 edition of our New York Times Neediest Cases Campaign magazine. The single mom Seeking a Fresh Start Without Limitations 14 raising three sons with autism, the teen worried about her mother with cancer, the refugee couple finally reunited; these are but a small sampling of those we serve Catholic Charities Celebrates Its Centennial of Service 15 whose hopeful endings are written by Catholic Charities. Supporting the Physically and Emotionally Challenged Together with The New York Times Neediest Cases campaign we launch into the next century committed to being an even more valued partner in building the fabric Page 13 Raising 2 Young Children by Herself, in a Space That Feels Not Big Enough 18 of a caring New York.

Calling on Angels While Enduring the Trials of Job 19 Sincerely, The Glorious Achievement of Zipping Up a Sweatshirt 20

Welcoming and Integrating Immigrants and Refugees Monsignor Kevin Sullivan A Reunion 21 Years in the Making 22 Executive Director Happy to Do Homework After a Long Journey from Guatemala 23 Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York Page 18 Mother and Son Reunite Only to Face Her Cancer Diagnosis 24

Happy Endings

Family Has Come a Long Way Since Receiving $289 Seven Years Ago 26 Our Vision From College Hopes to Immigrant Travails, Neediest Cases Catholic Charities helps solve the problems of New Yorkers in need — non-Catholics and Catholics alike. Had Global Reach 27 The neglected child, the homeless family and the hungry senior are among those for whom we provide help and create hope. We rebuild lives and touch almost every human need promptly, locally, day in and Brothers Holding Up Each Other, in the Wake of a Crushing Loss 29 day out, always with compassion and dignity. We help your neighbors as you would like to be helped if your family were in need. Page 24 Featured Agencies 30

www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org 2 New York Times METRO Friday, December 23, 2016 By EMILY PALMER A Garden Helps Heal a Family

list every plant: “Serrano peppers, squash, mint, collard greens,” she said, laughing. She walked past the bridge and gazebo in the garden and toward a haunted house that was built days before Halloween. Inside, green cobwebs stretched across the ceiling, ghouls and goblins with glowing eyes swung from posts along the wall and a holographic portrait of a child changing into a skeleton lay on the table. Her father adjusted cobwebs in the entranceway. He built the entire house in a few days, Jada boasted, adding: “I did the webbing.” The two, who often work together, transformed the garden for the year-end holidays, giving it a winter wonderland theme. “It’s not just about teaching people about fresh fruits and vegetables, but about working together to get things done,” Mr. Young said. “It might On the morning of her scheduled brain surgery, Sheila Young woke up sound crazy, but this place minimizes negative, outside forces and builds and glanced over at her husband, always the early riser, and was our community.” surprised he was still in bed. She nudged him. The family has seen the healing power of the garden. Weak after his But his body was rigid, blood trickling from his mouth. Ms. Young’s heart surgery, Mr. Young, now 55, rebuilt his strength tilling vegetables speech, frantic and impaired by her brain tumor, was so jumbled that and finding a way to use his carpentry skills outside of a full-time her son had to call 911. When they arrived, emergency responders tried job. When his health permits, he still volunteers daily in the garden. to put her, rather than her husband, in the ambulance. Jada took pride in every plant, memorizing all the varieties and building On that day in December 2006, Ms. Young and her husband, her confidence and self-worth, which has manifested itself in better Michael, were treated at the same hospital in the Bronx. Mr. Young, grades this school year. who had bitten his tongue during a seizure in the night, learned he For Ms. Young, 55, healing came with visits to the garden in the had epilepsy and severe heart problems. Ms. Young postponed her months after surgery. Surrounded by children visiting the garden, she operation, but doctors monitored her situation because of a minor injury slowly overcame the fear of looking different. She realized the children she suffered helping her husband from the bed. Waiting at home with did not care how she looked. She now leads the nearby Mott Haven her older brother, their daughter, Jada, then 6, worried whether she Farmers Market, where she works as a volunteer every Tuesday. would grow up without her parents. With renewed confidence, Ms. Young got reconstructive surgery About a year later, Ms. Young underwent a risky, 12-hour operation and Botox to improve mobility and realign her face. With consecutive to remove a benign tumor that wrapped around nerves on her face operations, covered by insurance, her mouth is slowly untwisting, and and pressed against veins on her neck. The surgery, while successful, she can now shut her eyes naturally. In 2014, she walked into a movie paralyzed the left side of her face. theater in Union Square in Manhattan and talked her way into a “I looked like a monster,” she said, adding that her left cheek sagged part-time cleaning job, her first job since her tumor diagnosis in 2006. four inches. “Looking in the mirror, I wouldn’t see myself.” There she earns $300 a month. Mr. Young, who had quit his carpentry job to help care for his wife, Still, the couple’s health problems have severely reduced the family’s was unable to return to work. He underwent open-heart surgery a year income. Because of frequent seizures, Mr. Young has not been able to after his wife’s surgery. hold a steady job since his diagnosis. Living paycheck to paycheck, they Family photographs frozen in time line the walls of the apartment. receive $1,439 in Social Security disability payments each month, as well The couple, back to back, in evening dress, smile from the living room as $168 in food stamps. They pay $418 in monthly rent; the rest is covered corner. Nearby, a teenage Ms. Young in a tweed suit stands with an by a government-assisted subsidy. arm around Michael Jackson in a New Jersey hotel lobby. In another, As the Youngs rebuilt themselves within the garden walls, they a 4-year-old Jada in a white gown, the proud winner of a Harlem beauty encouraged Jada to venture out to find other outlets to relieve stress. pageant, stands with her mother. They smile and wave. She joined Black Girls Rock, a youth empowerment and mentoring After Ms. Young’s surgery, she would not have another photograph organization, and sings with Gospel for Teens, an ensemble and arts taken for six years. education program in Harlem. The happiness captured in the family photos on the walls of their She also joined Catholic Big Sisters and Big Brothers, an affiliate of South Bronx apartment had faded. The stress of her parents’ illnesses Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New York, one of eight organizations turned Jada inward. She fell behind in school and failed classes. supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. The organization In the family’s anguish, they found sanctuary in a nearby garden lost provided Jada with $275 from the Neediest Cases Fund to replace lost to piles of garbage and frequent drug deals. Where others saw blight, reading glasses. they saw potential. Now, once again, Ms. Young poses for family photos, managing a On trips to the lot, the family joined neighbors, picking up trash partial smile. Taped across the top of her bathroom mirror are the words, Protecting and Nurturing and eventually clearing the land on East 139th Street to revive the “My Black Is Beautiful.” community garden. Ms. Young’s doctors recently offered to perform cosmetic surgery, Mr. Young filled garden beds with bulbs, dug a pond, constructed promising to erase the marks of the last decade. But Ms. Young was not storage sheds and built plots for some 20 neighbors to grow their own interested. “I don’t want to be 10 years younger,” she said. “It took a Children and Youth herbs and vegetables. whole lot of time to get to where I am.” Jada, now 16 and typically soft-spoken, changes in demeanor once She wishes her doctors could provide something else. “I want to inside the gates of Padre Plaza/Success Garden. With authority, she can smile again,” she said. ◆

3 www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org Copyright ©2016 The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission. www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org 4 New York Times METRO Saturday, November 26, 2016 By EMILY PALMER New York Times METRO Sunday, December 25, 2016 By EMILY PALMER Chipping Away at a List of Goals, A Dream That Survived Life in and Bonding Over Cupcakes a War Zone and Life on the Streets

Ms. Wright snapped a photograph of it with her phone so that she would Idi Diallo started playing soccer it was Mr. Diallo’s turn to take care of the man who had taken him in. always have it with her. when he was 5, living in a small He took warm meals to him and visited him often, updating him on his In the year that followed, she would refer to that photo to cross items Ivory Coast village, kicking a ball success at school. off the list. on his family farm through two Mr. Rodriguez still managed to sponsor Mr. Diallo for his green card She and Andie traveled to Garrison, N.Y., where they hiked in Arden rocks that served as the goal. Even and help him apply for legal immigration status. Four months after Point State Park. “We had sore feet at the end,” Ms. Wright said. as he played, he could see troops Mr. Rodriguez died, Mr. Diallo learned that his immigration application Andie sewed, making two blankets for homeless people as part of fighting in the distance and hear had been approved. a community service project. And she got to bake — banana bread. gunfire ringing out in the civil wars “When he passed away, it was hard,” Mr. Diallo said, shaking his “My uncle took two helpings,” she said. that raged through his childhood. head. “He’d become my father.” Ms. Wright and Andie see each other every other weekend, and their Emon Hassan for The New York Times He practiced every day, dream- He played a game the day of Mr. Rodriguez’s funeral. And he meetings start with a game of three questions. On a brisk afternoon in ing of playing in professional continued classes. Prospect Park in Brooklyn a few days before Halloween, as children in European soccer leagues. He had never seen a soccer game on television “I had to stay in school,” he said. “I couldn’t give up on something princess and Spiderman costumes roamed around, Ms. Wright retrieved — played on pristine fields with roaring fans — but at 11, he left his he’d helped me work toward.” her questions for Andie from a plastic bag in her purse. family for Abidjan, the country’s largest city, to play for a local team for On a cold November morning, Mr. Diallo sat inside Create Young

Nicole Craine for The New York Times What is your favorite food? (Cheeseburger with fries and ketchup.) the next three years. He also joined the Ivory Coast national team and Adult Residences, a transitional housing program serving men 18 to 25, What is your favorite day of the year? (Her birthday. Ms. Wright’s traveled to Ghana, where the team made the semifinals in a tournament where he has lived since February 2015. Create is affiliated with Catholic Andie Gratereaux, 12, right, with her mentor, Darragh Wright, on an outing in is Thanksgiving.) They also discussed Andie’s Halloween costume. of African nations. Charities Archdiocese of New York, one of eight organizations supported Prospect Park in Brooklyn last month. (A zombie bride, with black eyes, a pale face and bloodied lips.) In 2010, he got a chance to play in Italy for the AC Milan Football by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. Then and now, the questions are never too serious. Academy Camp, a youth program sponsored by the elite Italian football Mr. Diallo, now 20, recalls with pride the life he has lived after his Andie Gratereaux sat under the autumn leaves at DeSalvio Playground They do not discuss the trip Andie and her mother must make every league. But when a relative in Milan was unable to house him, he decided mentor’s death. He graduated from high school in June and was in Manhattan a year ago, peeled away the wrapper from a salted caramel week from the Lower East Side to East New York to stay for the weekend. to pursue his dream in the United States. accepted to both the College of Staten Island and LaGuardia Community cupcake and started to put her life back together. They do not talk about the stress weighing on Ms. Gratereaux, a 34-year-old Then 15, Mr. Diallo boarded a plane with a friend of his brother’s College. It is a far different future from the one he imagined in Ivory With the help of a mentor she had met that day, Andie, 12, started a college graduate who most recently found work as a poll worker on and headed to New York. They settled in the Bronx, but when his Coast, where he spent few years getting a formal education; schools were list in a spiral notebook of what she wanted to do over the coming year. Election Day and is receiving job training through Grace Institute, companion returned to Africa a month later, Mr. Diallo found himself often closed during the wars. Visit a park, try to sew, play music, learn to bake, go ice skating. another program affiliated with Catholic Charities. alone on the streets. He received a $2,000 scholarship from the National Association for The list became a road map for a girl uprooted from her home in Instead, Andie uses the time as an escape, a chance to become more A practicing Muslim, Mr. Diallo found refuge at the Musa Mosque Education and Homeless Children and Youth. The New York Public Virginia after her stepfather threw her and her mother, Arlene independent, her mother said. Those moments, along with the aid the Islamic Center in the Bronx, where he often slept in the prayer hall. Library awarded him a laptop for academic excellence, and Catholic Gratereaux, out of the house one night in 2011. He did so during one of family is receiving elsewhere, have started to help them rebuild their He also informally played soccer with the Fordham University team. Charities used $350 from The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund to his fits of rage, episodes during which he would get so angry he would lives. Catholic Charities also provided the family with $360 from the “He’d have played me, but I didn’t have a diploma,” Mr. Diallo said pay for his schoolbooks. Financial aid will cover his academic costs for punch holes in the apartment walls that Ms. Gratereaux covered with Neediest Cases Fund so that Andie could purchase her first laptop. She of the coach, recalling an interaction on the field. “He said, ‘Where do you the first two years at both schools. It will not cover his room and board, her daughter’s drawings. and her mother spend many hours after school at the library so that come from?’ And I said, ‘You don’t want to know.’” but he qualifies for an $800 rental subsidy from the city. Ms. Gratereaux’s brother drove from Manhattan that night to Andie can complete her computer-based homework. Then a friend at the university invited him to play in pickup games In addition to working part time as a waiter, bringing in about $600 Petersburg, Va., near Richmond, and took mother and daughter Andie also has lessons when she is with Ms. Wright. at Heritage Field, the site of the original Yankee Stadium. That is where a month, he plays midfielder for Boca Juniors Academy-USA, affiliated immediately back to his place on the Lower East Side. They were safe On the October day in Prospect Park, they got up from under a tree, Mr. Diallo met Fernando Rodriguez, a middle-age high school basketball with Argentina’s premier student soccer league. He travels to Long then, but they had left everything behind. and Ms. Wright handed Andie her phone with Google Maps open on it. coach battling advanced melanoma, who watched the games. Island three days a week to practice, and has had tryouts with professional Without a permanent home, Ms. Gratereaux and Andie have shuffled They wanted to get a cup of hot cocoa, but it was up to Andie to navigate. Mr. Rodriguez approached Mr. Diallo after a game to compliment soccer clubs across the country, including the San Francisco Deltas and since then between her brother’s apartment and her parents’ place in “Andie, you lead us,” Ms. Wright said, bending over to look at the his performance. Mr. Diallo spoke little English, but he recognized LA Galaxy II. Additional tryouts are scheduled for FC Miami City and the East New York section of Brooklyn. phone. “Can you find east? Show me on the map.” Mr. Rodriguez’s accent and responded in Spanish — the language he had Orlando City Soccer Club in January. He has also been invited for a They were not used to this lifestyle, especially Andie. It led Andie shuffled into position and began to walk. chosen to learn at the soccer academy in Ivory Coast. return tryout in Los Angeles later in January but is unable to afford the Ms. Gratereaux to Catholic Big Brothers and Big Sisters, an affiliate of “Learning your way around a map is an important thing,” “So from then, we started talking,” Mr. Diallo said with a smile. plane fare. Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New York, one of the eight organizations Ms. Wright said as they reversed course after a wrong turn under a bridge. “It was a good moment. As time went by, he asked me about my life. He laughed and shook his head, reflecting on the future, hopeful yet supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. She worried The young girl looked back at the map, and they made their way out I don’t like talking about my problems; the past is in the past. But he’d unwilling to wish too much. about their depressing circumstances and thought Andie needed a mentor, of the park. Soon, they would return to another park, the playground in take me to eat at a nearby cafeteria, and he’d ask small questions. “If God gets me on a team — whatever team — this year, and I do someone who could show her a world that seemed beyond her grasp. Manhattan where their friendship was forged, to mark their one-year He asked where I lived, and I said, ‘No house for me,’ and he invited me well ...,” he said, his words trailing off. “With agents watching those Andie was matched with Darragh Wright, 33, who had turned to Big anniversary. to stay with him.” games, you never know.” Brothers and Big Sisters about the same time. “I was looking for a way “We’ll do the cupcake thing again,” Andie said. A month after their initial meeting, Mr. Diallo accepted an invitation He is waiting to choose a college until he hears back from to get connected to the New York community in a long-term way,” Ms. Wright agreed. “And we’ll make another list,” she said. v for a home-cooked dinner and saw Mr. Rodriguez’s spare room. “There professional soccer teams, and plans to start classes after tryouts Ms. Wright, who grew up in Atlanta, said. was no way I’d find something better than that,” he recalled thinking. conclude in February, studying business accounting or physical therapy. At DeSalvio Playground, Ms. Wright decided to break the ice over Mr. Diallo, then 17, moved in and enrolled at Urban Assembly Media If he makes a team this year, he said, he plans to continue school in cupcakes. Together, she and Andie worked on the list of goals, and High School in Manhattan, starting as a 10th grader. He took classes to that city. learn English and joined the soccer team, which won the championship Regardless of where the next few months take him, Mr. Diallo said, in his first year. he will keep working to become a professional soccer player. Mr. Rodriguez became Mr. Diallo’s legal guardian and started filling “I could do without anything — live on the street — to play soccer,” out paperwork to adopt him. But his health continued to decline, and a he said. “And I’ve done that. I’ve been dreaming about this day since year after taking in Mr. Diallo, he was admitted to a hospital. This time, I was born.” v

5 www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org Copyright ©2016 The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission. Copyright ©2016 The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission. www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org 6 New York Times METRO Wednesday, November 16, 2016 By JOHN OTIS A Car Accident Throws a Productive Life Into Turmoil

After falling $3,589.40 behind in rent, he turned to Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, one of the eight organizations supported by The New York Times’s Neediest Cases Fund. Catholic Charities worked with other groups to cover his arrears. They used $347 in Neediest Cases money to buy Mr. Nublett a kitchen table, chairs, a dresser and a medicine cabinet to help him organize and thrive in his apartment, which he can rarely leave. Mr. Nublett, who uses a wheelchair, a walker and a cane to get around, lives in a fourth-floor walk-up apartment. Venturing outside is an exhausting, painstaking process. He does so only to see doctors or physical therapists. “I got to sit here and watch TV all day with a pillow behind my head like some old dude,” he said. Catholic Charities has applied for a rent-increase exemption and is Credit Ángel Franco/The New York Times trying to secure him a ground-floor apartment in his building. Mr. Nublett’s physical ailments keep him inside, which only worsens David Nublett, 57, who uses a wheelchair, a walker and a cane to get around, the psychological pain of confinement, he said. He has few ways to keep in his fourth-floor walk-up apartment in the Bronx. from dwelling on his misfortune and the inequity of having his life change so radically. Conventional forms of escapism do nothing for him. Fresh from a promising meeting with a real estate agent, David Nublett “Music soothes the savage beast or whatever,” Mr. Nublett said. was on his way to treat himself to a new pair of shoes when he started to “But when you listen, you just think about what you’re going through.” walk across Westchester Avenue in the Bronx. Friends have fallen away, visiting much less and looking at him with That is the last thing he remembers. pity when they do, he said. No family members live in New York State. Mr. Nublett later woke up in a state of delirium at a hospital. Tubes Other close family members are deceased. His neighbors are friendly, were inside him. A doctor was snapping his left shoulder back into joint; he said, but have not helped him navigate his new life. His only consistent another told him if they did not perform emergency surgery to remove companion is his home health care aide. his spleen, he could die. The medication Mr. Nublett sometimes takes for his anxiety makes “You wake up and they’re ready to cut you open,” Mr. Nublett him drowsy. He has grown accustomed to that state of consciousness recalled, his voice strained. “It’s like ‘The Twilight Zone.’” at times, mentally drifting away and pondering the unanswerable He was struck by a car that morning in February 2012. He spent the question, “Why me?” next two months at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx. Years later, after “The only bad things I did was curse, and we all do that when the multiple surgeries, Mr. Nublett, 57, still has five pins in his shoulder, game comes on,” Mr. Nublett said. a metal plate in his ribs and a shattered left knee. He struggles to walk. He has always followed rules and adhered to a rigid code of He has developed high blood pressure, diabetes and severe anxiety. right and wrong, taught to him by his mother and his faith. But now, “I shouldn’t be here,” Mr. Nublett said, an anguished refrain he Mr. Nublett struggles to understand the feeling of being inexplicably often repeated. punished. Before the accident, Mr. Nublett worked two jobs, in maintenance “I shouldn’t be here,” he said. “What about the bad guys that walk and in security. He was self-sufficient and frugal. Now he cannot work around the streets? There are guys out there who are worse. These guys at all. Mr. Nublett said the driver’s liability insurance covered his are still walking the streets, they’re still walking.” medical bills, but left him with no compensation to make up for what Additional surgeries are pending, including for a replacement for has become years of lost wages. his left knee. Mr. Nublett is praying that he will be able to get back on his The catastrophe not only stripped him of his mobility and feet at long last. independence, but also decimated his life savings. “I want to go back outside again and cross the street,” Mr. Nublett “I have to start all over again, like a baby,” he said. said. “I want to catch a train again, sit down and have a bite to eat. His monthly income consists of $987 a month in Social Security Go to work like everybody else.” disability, enough to cover the rent for his Bronx apartment. He also That is where he should be, he said. Not taking pills, receiving receives $194 in food stamps. Desperation compelled him to beg injections and fending off panic attacks. Not fighting loneliness and strangers for help. despair, as he spends every day on the couch. “You feel less than a man when you do this,” he said. “When you ask He should not be here. ◆ Feeding the Hungry and people for change, you feel less than a man.” Sheltering the Homeless

7 www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org Copyright ©2016 The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission. www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org 8 New York Times METRO Tuesday, November 22, 2016 By JOHN OTIS New York Times METRO Tuesday, December 27, 2016 By JOHN OTIS Stepping Out on Faith, Giving Up ‘Mostly Everything’ a Blind Man Counts His Blessings to Care for His Wife

It reminds him that God will always make a way, and, he says, he is Mrs. Travare would stare into space or turn on the stove only to leave a recipient of God’s grace. After arriving at St. Anthony, Mr. Bracey it unattended. She became obsessed with cleaning and turning on every was connected with multiple social services, including programs for the light in a room. blind and the homeless. Catholic Charities Guild for the Blind has “It was quite strange for me — very, very frightening,” he said. provided him with a caseworker and enrolled him in employment Doctors determined that Mrs. Travare was experiencing the training classes. cognitive aftereffect of an unnoticed stroke she had had years before. Mr. Bracey has worked several jobs, including in telemarketing and She already had diabetes and heart disease, and now she was slipping sales, but he has been out of work for several years. Of working-age into dementia. adults who are blind, only 40 percent are employed, according to the The condition worsened over time. Mrs. Travare, 59, now barely National Federation for the Blind. speaks, and when she does, her command of English has drastically The Bible tells him he deserves the chance to contribute in some changed. Many days, she is barely able to leave her bed, and she needs way, recalling 2 Thessalonians 3:10: “For even when we were with you, Mr. Travare’s help to walk everywhere, including the bathroom. we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.” He stopped working in 2013 to care for her. “I left everything, mostly “I would love to work,” Mr. Bracey said. everything, to be by her side,” he said. Emon Hassan for The New York Times Unable to find employment, Mr. Bracey’s monthly income comes Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times But every so often, despite the grave diagnosis, Mr. Travare said, in the form of assistance: $235 from Supplemental Security Income, he sees glimpses of his wife’s former self. Leroy Bracey, 49, has a temporary home at the St. Anthony Shelter for Renewal $518 from Social Security, $87 from New York State disability and $189 Abdou Travare and his wife, Ramata Travare, at home in the Bronx. “I believe one day she will get better and be the same again,” he said. in the Bronx. Mr. Bracey was born with myopic degeneration, a condition that He stopped working in 2013 to care for Mrs. Travare, who has diabetes, in food stamps. His top priority is to secure permanent public housing “I still believe it. That’s what keeps me going.” affects his eyesight. heart disease and dementia. for people with disabilities. His name is on waiting lists. Mr. Travare receives $733 in Social Security Insurance benefits In August, Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New York used each month. The couple also receive $215 in Social Security benefits and His routine is the same every day. “Don’t scratch it.” $324 in Neediest Cases funds to pay for a MetroCard and three months $350 in food stamps each month. He has spent much of his savings, Before going outside, Leroy Bracey recites Psalms 121, a daily Those were the first words Abdou Travare’s wife, Ramata, ever spoke of phone and laundry bills. and has struggled to pay their $1,335 monthly rent. By this past reassurance that God is ever-present, protecting him wherever he goes. to him. He was from Senegal and she was from Mali, but they met on a Not one to sit idle, Mr. Bracey takes to the streets daily, though he summer, they were more than $11,000 in arrears. Mr. Bracey has myopic degeneration, a congenital retinal condition street in Paris. Both were attending college in France. Mr. Travare had tends to stay in areas he knows, usually around 14th Street near his eye Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New York, one of the eight that has worsened his vision with age, especially in recent years. stopped to examine her car, the same make and model as the one he doctor, whom he takes the bus to visit every other month. organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Navigating New York City’s streets has become increasingly treacherous. drove, except hers was white and his was green. “I never liked to be told I couldn’t do certain things,” he said. “I know Fund, helped prevent the couple’s eviction. Staff members from the “People and locations are like a fog, a blur,” Mr. Bracey, 49, said. Just do not get too close to it, she warned him, a playful request my heart, I know my mind and I know my faith.” organization’s HomeBase program secured for the Travares a one-time “I don’t see faces, unless I’m really close and I can smell your breath.” that led to a short conversation, an exchange of names and a few laughs. During the past few months, his vision has continued to deteriorate emergency grant from the city’s Human Resources Administration for He has had close calls with cars, even more with bicycles, only to be The next day, Mr. Travare intentionally parked his car next to hers, as objects now appear even more blurry, but Mr. Bracey said he had $9,300. Catholic Charities also contributed $300 in Neediest funds saved by the blaring of horns or screeching of tires. A few times, he said, and flirtatiously tried to use his key to open her car door. never felt safer about town, thanks to a cane the Guild for the Blind gave toward their back rent. a sixth sense has halted him. She was smitten. Five years later, in 1980, the couple married. him a few months ago. Mr. Travare, who once trotted the globe, now rarely leaves his Bronx As a way to preserve his freedom, Mr. Bracey carries around three “We’ve been with each other for a while now,” Mr. Travare, 60, said. “I thought it might slow me down or make me feel, in my mind, apartment, a place so bursting with possessions that a three-piece tools: a small telescope worn around his neck, used to spot street signs Over the past 30 years, they have faced challenges together, including less than what I am,” he said. “But it’s given me more confidence.” sofa sits in the middle of their kitchen. Their home is crammed with and locate bus stops; a magnifying glass kept in his pocket for reading; a lengthy time apart in the mid-1980s. During a vacation to San Francisco, It also serves as a warning to drivers and bicyclists who he may additional pieces of furniture, appliances, paintings and numerous other and in his hand, a folding cane. Mr. Travare became so fond of the city that he decided to stay and not notice. items, remnants of more prosperous times when the Travares had larger “These three things I carry with me just like my wallet,” he said. pursue a master’s degree in international finance at Golden Gate The change in seasons brings new constraints. As the days get living quarters. “I want to sustain as much independence as I can.” University. Three years went by before Mrs. Travare, who had stayed in shorter during fall and winter, the lack of sunlight limits his independence. Whenever Mr. Travare is able to venture out, it is usually to take his Blindness is not his only limitation. Mr. Bracey has been homeless Mali, was able to join her husband in the United States. He does not stay out after dark and avoids the dimly lit subway system, wife to a doctor’s appointment, or to pick up groceries and phone cards since March. He has a temporary home at the St. Anthony Shelter for Mr. Travare’s job in financial management, one that required him to venturing underground only to refill his MetroCard to use on the bus. to call their families in Africa. Sometimes, he takes his wife to dinner. Renewal in the Bronx, an affiliate of Catholic Charities Archdiocese of travel so often that he had to add pages to his passport, allowed him “I prefer having stronger faith than stronger vision,” Mr. Bracey said. Much of his remaining free time is spent cooking, cleaning and looking New York, one of the eight agencies supported by The New York Times’s to return to Africa a few times each year to see his wife. The Bible reminds him to remain hopeful, despite his setbacks. after her. Neediest Cases Fund. Before that, he lived with his mother. But their He held different jobs in the decades that followed. Whenever He often turns to the plight of Job, who suffered greatly only to be “I don’t see it as a job, I see it as a pleasure,” he said. “Anything she relationship grew too turbulent for Mr. Bracey to stay with her. career stress overwhelmed him, Mrs. Travare was always there with v blessed by God in the end. needs from me, I will be here.” His steadfast companion is his Bible, a large-print edition he v encouragement and support, he said. “I know God has something great in store for me,” Mr. Bracey said. keeps in his knapsack. The Gospel is his source of boundless solace In 2009, they moved to New York City. Soon after, Mr. Travare and solutions. noticed his wife was behaving oddly. “After so many years, you know the person,” he said. “You can just see something is not quite right.”

9 www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org Copyright ©2019 The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission. Copyright ©2016 The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission. www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org 10 New York Times METRO Monday, January 16, 2017 By JOHN OTIS Dangers Behind and Uncertainties Ahead, but Together at Last

José and Juan left El Salvador early one morning in November 2014, on what ended up being a nearly two-week journey by car and by foot, guided by a smuggler. Each time they crossed another border — El Salvador to Guatemala, Guatemala to Mexico and Mexico to the United States — they traversed a river, some with frightening rapids. The scariest part of their journey was when they were robbed at knife point. That December, the Rivera brothers were apprehended by the United States border patrol officers in Texas and sent to a center run by the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement. There they came in contact with Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New York, one of the eight organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. José and Juan were sent to New York, where they were reunited with their mother for the first time in more than a decade. Juan leapt from Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times his chair at the sight of her. José, dubious and anxious, stayed seated, arms folded. Ms. Rivera looked different. She had lost a lot of weight. Flor de Maria Rivera with her sons Juan, left, and José at the Brooklyn The last time they saw each other, he had to look up to make eye contact. restaurant where she works. Now they were the same height. “There’s a lot of change,” Ms. Rivera said, turning to look at José. It seemed like another normal day for José Rivera. His mother dropped “He is a man, a younger man, but a man.” him off at his school in San Salvador, hugging him tightly as she told It was an adjustment for the family, not only for José and Juan, him she would see him at the end of the day. But there was one detail now 17 and 12, to acclimate to a new country, but also for the family to that, even then at age 6, José thought was strange: She was crying. adjust to being around one another. Her sons grew up around their more His mother, Flor de Maria Rivera, never returned to pick him up. lenient grandmother, while Ms. Rivera acknowledged she can be harder A week later, he learned that his mother had left for the United States, on her boys. to lay the groundwork for creating a better life for her family. Over the “I’m strict with me, for myself, and I’m strict with them,” Ms. Rivera next 11 years, José and his younger brother, Juan, were raised by said. their grandmother. She works full time as a waitress in Brooklyn and also works part “I didn’t say goodbye because it would have been too difficult,” time cleaning apartments, which earns her a total of about $622 each Ms. Rivera, 35, said in a recent interview. “I might have changed week. Her rent is $1,500 a month. my mind.” The family lives in a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. She worked in El Salvador as an elementary schoolteacher. She loved Ms. Rivera sleeps in the small bedroom, while José and Juan initially her job, but her meager salary was not enough to support the family — shared a foldout couch. In October, Catholic Charities used $800 from the boys’ father had abandoned them soon after Juan was born — the Neediest Cases Fund to buy each brother a twin bed. especially after the death of her father, who often pitched in financially For the brothers, adjusting to schools has been a challenge, to help her. When Ms. Rivera arrived in New York City in 2005, especially for José, who has struggled to learn English. “We knew she worked three different jobs. She never expected to stay in the United the basics, like the colors, a little bit of the letters,” he said. “When I States for so long. try to speak, I find difficulty, because it’s hard to find the words I want “The first five years were almost unbearable,” she said. “I thought to say.” about the kids every day, cried every day.” There was a time that And bullying is rampant, both brothers said. They are often teased Ms. Rivera nearly caved in and considered buying a plane ticket home, by classmates about their immigration status. José said that some but she said her family discouraged her. students had told him that if he did not help them with their homework, As difficult as the separation was, Ms. Rivera took solace in they would report him to immigration officials. knowing that the money she sent home helped her children and family. “I’m here to make a better life, and make money and take care of my The thousands of miles between her and her family, she said, was a price family,” he said. “And when they say that, I feel angry and sad.” worth paying to provide for them. Over the years, Ms. Rivera kept in The brothers hold special immigrant juvenile status, intended for touch with her sons via Skype a few times a week. abused, neglected or abandoned juveniles. They are in the process of As the boys grew older, new dangers emerged. José started to applying for permanent residency. Both plan to stay focused on their receive threats from gang members who wanted him to help traffic studies, as their mother has requested. Their lives are full of uncertainties, drugs. Ms. Rivera said a major reason she hesitated to ask for her Strengthening Families and and fears have taken new forms. But at least they are together. ◆ sons to join her was her fear of the perilous journey they would have to take. But the idea of her sons remaining in El Salvador, tempted and Resolving Crises threatened by gangs, became unthinkable.

11 www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org Copyright ©2017 The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission. www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org 12 New York Times METRO Monday, November 21, 2016 By JOHN OTIS New York Times METRO Wednesday, January 25, 2017 By EMILY PALMER Raising 5 Sons Alone, 3 With Autism, Seeking a Fresh Start Without Limitations Takes a Toll on a Mother’s Body On a chilly October morning, Talea That same month, the Childses found out they had qualified for public Childs, 4, still dressed in pajamas, assistance through the Human Resources Administration. But two days later, bounced along the living room rug of a another error closed their case, halting all public assistance, including food stamps. On a recent afternoon at the family’s apartment, her sons’ mercurial United States map.“There was this In early 2016, the Human Resources Administration reopened the case, and temperaments were on display. They slammed doors and shouted and thought that Puerto Ricans should the family reapplied to the Neighborhood Association for Inter-Cultural Affairs. wailed in constant fits. Glass trinkets were removed from a coffee table be with Puerto Ricans and not with But a week later the nonprofit denied the application. Eventually, in February, and placed in a less precarious spot. One of her sons repeatedly threw a Dominicans,” recalled Mr. German, the Human Resources Administration referred the family for an eviction water bottle around the living room. Another snatched a tablet from his now 49. He didn’t care. “She was so prevention subsidy. flirtatious,” he said, “so cute.” “It felt personal,” Ms. Childs said. “It was one more stressor when there were brother as he was watching a video. Joshua Bright for The New York Times “Konnichiwa,” she greeted in already weeks we didn’t have enough food on the table.” “God must be giving me the strength, because I don’t know where a Japanese, and bowed. That same month, the Childses found out they had qualified for public woman like me can have so much patience,” Ms. Ferrer said. Surrounded by shelves of her assistance through the Human Resources Administration. But two days later, Her oldest children, Matthew Ferrer, 18, and Javon Murphy, 13, favorite books, she selected a thin volume and sat to read. another error closed their case, halting all public assistance, including food stamps. do their part to corral and calm their younger siblings. Ms. Ferrer “She’s been interested in books since she could belly over and look at the In early 2016, the Human Resources Administration reopened the case, speaks glowingly about Matthew in particular. He is rarely home, pages,” her mother, Trenicia Childs, said as Talea settled into the story. and the family reapplied to the Neighborhood Association for Inter-Cultural often working a food-service job to keep the house afloat. Her pride is Ms. Childs is applying to kindergarten for next year — a notoriously rigorous Affairs. But a week later the nonprofit denied the application. Eventually, in coupled with guilt. process in New York City schools — and nurtures her daughter’s learning at home. February, the Human Resources Administration referred the family for an “He’s young, he doesn’t have any children,” she said. “He shouldn’t A schedule taped to a cupboard by the kitchen lists Circle Time, Music/Movement, eviction prevention subsidy. Storytelling, Cooking and other activities. Brushes, thick with paint, sit in a “It felt personal,” Ms. Childs said. “It was one more stressor when there were Credit Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times be having to deal with that.” canister by the sink, and evidence of recent art projects lines the walls — abstract already weeks we didn’t have enough food on the table.” Ms. Ferrer is responsible for paying the roughly $1,000 monthly strokes of pinks, purples and green glitter. Also on the walls are posters of the In March, HomeBase, an eviction prevention program administered by Melissa Ferrer, 33, with four of her five sons, from left: rent. She receives $1,486 every month in Social Security disability Javon Murphy, 13; Aiden Soto, 3; Justin Ferrer, 8; and Angel Soto, 7. solar system, the human body, the numbers through 100 and the words “large,” Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New York, one of the eight organizations benefits for her three youngest children, $270 in food stamps and $300 Her oldest son, Matthew Ferrer, 18, is rarely home, often working a “small,” “run” and “walk” and associated words. supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, helped them navigate the food-service job to help keep the house afloat. that Matthew pitches in from his job. She does not receive child support While Talea read in the corner, Ms. Childs sorted through piles of housing complicated application process — which included another errant application from her children’s fathers, and because of her autistic sons’ care documents. The Childses, who are among almost 565,000 people in New York closing in April — and avoid eviction. By this time, the family was $12,193.46 Though Melissa Ferrer moved into her new home in July, she has requirements, she has not worked in more than eight years, since shortly State who receive some public assistance, according to state calculations in June, in arrears. never expected to need help. Ms. Childs, 45, and her husband, Tarrell Childs, 40, “It’s right out of a Kafka novel,” said Alice Kenny, the organization’s director refused to paint her sons’ bedroom walls blue. She does not dare get before Justin was born. “I never thought I’d see myself the way I’m seeing myself, struggling an Air Force veteran, have college degrees and work force experience. of special projects. too comfortable, a symptom of her years of homelessness. While serving in the military for a decade as an account finance specialist, In May, Catholic Charities got the city to help settle the Childs family’s arrears Ms. Ferrer, 33, is a single mother of five sons. All of them have so much,” she said. The family’s tight finances are a steady source of anxiety for Ms. Ferrer, Mr. Childs worked through an injury in 1997 that gouged and blinded his right with a lump sum of $12,083.46. Then in June, nine months after initially spent portions of their childhoods in New York City’s shelter system. eye. A Bronx native, he returned there in 2003, working full time while studying applying for a housing subsidy, they received their first payment, along with who worries her family may once again be without a home. As long as she What made the experience even worse, Ms. Ferrer said, was that English literature at Fordham University. He wrote short stories, plays and short another conciliation notice threatening case closure. The family resolved the has one, she is meticulous about keeping it pristine. She said she simply her three youngest children — Aiden Soto, 3; Angel Soto, 7; and Justin film scripts late into the night… notice and now receives $960 a month toward rent from the city. Ferrer, 8 — are autistic. They also have attention-deficit disorder and cannot tolerate dirty things. With Mr. Childs’s steady income as a property manager, Ms. Childs Still, despite noting Mr. Childs’s veteran status in September 2015, the family anxiety disorders. Each morning, she races to get her four school-age children ready. postponed completing her master’s in education to raise their daughter. She was was not referred to the proper office for public assistance for more than a year. “It’s not a good life,” she said. “It’s hard and it’s stressful and it hurts. They all attend different schools, riding different buses that arrive at dif- one certification shy of graduation. But Mr. Childs lost his job in 2014 when his Last summer, Mr. Childs got a job as a substitute teacher. Working toward Not only for me to live that life but to see the children living that life ferent times. She does it all alone. The children’s fathers cannot be relied company restructured because of financial problems. a teaching license while interning on film projects, he anticipates additional film “That’s when we really started getting behind,” Ms. Childs said. work this year. In January, he began a work training program at a martial arts and to know you’re not stable.” on, Ms. Ferrer said, and although she has many family members nearby, they do not help. With his G.I. Bill benefits set to expire, Mr. Childs dusted off his screenplays school in the Bronx, learning to become an instructor. Last year, she made a successful bid for affordable housing in the and applied to the New York Film Academy. He got in. He planned to work while Ms. Childs also temporarily worked at a part-time job with the federal Bronx. But in her haste to move, she signed the rental agreement “You would think, having such a big family, that we’d be together but we’re not,” she said. “Everybody’s in their own world.” going to school, but he found that an accelerated yearlong conservatory program Women, Infants and Children program. She has also taught English to children without proper due diligence. The apartment flooded every time it packed with 12-hour days did not allow for extra time. in their Bronx neighborhood and plans to return to school to study early Her stress is visible. Large clumps of her hair have fallen out. She has rained. Mold grew on the walls. The heat did not work. Insulation was Although the military covered his studies, the family exhausted its meager childhood education and later open a toddler education program, based on the cut her hair short to make it less noticeable. Her knees and legs shoddy. Bugs wiggled up through broken floorboards, traumatizing savings. family’s educational approach at home. Justin, who has an insect phobia. ache from spending long hours on her feet, and she has begun to have With little time to search for jobs during school, Mr. Childs graduated in The family brings in $950 monthly, and currently has about $2,000 in “I’ve never seen anything like that in my life, and I lived in shelters,” panic attacks. September 2015 without work. That month, bringing in just $594.98 in disability rent arrears. Ms. Ferrer said. “Animals were coming in and my kids, my children, are “I might look 33, but I’ll tell you one thing, inside my body, I don’t payments from Veterans Affairs, the Childses applied for public assistance, HomeBase provided the family with $340 in July to buy a dresser and a sleeping, getting bit by ants.” feel 33,” said Ms. Ferrer. “I feel like I’m 70 years old.” confronting a frustrating labyrinth of city departments and aid applications, toddler bed for Talea. Then in September, Catholic Charities provided $162.85 in according to documents provided by the family. Neediest Cases funds to cover the cost of Talea’s school clothes and bedding… This summer, with the help of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese She dreams of going on vacation, even for a day or two, but she knows it will not be reality. Instead, respite comes in short doses at the They hoped the assistance would be temporary — keeping food on the table At night, the family dresses up and improvises plays, which Mr. Childs of New York, one of the eight organizations supported by The New York and bills paid on time — until they gained full-time employment. In October 2015, records. Many end in life lessons. Self-limitation is not one of them. Times’s Neediest Cases Fund, the family moved into a safer, cleaner end of the day. When her children are in bed, she showers, reflects and thanks God for giving her and her family another day. a month after they applied for aid, the city’s Human Resources Administration While sitting on a park bench on a recent mother-daughter outing, Ms. Childs home in the Bronx. Drawing from the Neediest funds, Catholic Charities lost their paperwork. A month after that, the Homelessness Diversion Units forced said, she had a conversation with another mother who did not agree that everyone “I’m so tired,” Ms. Ferrer said. “Then I’ll get up at five in the also provided $321 in school clothes for the children. them to reapply. And a month after that: the same story. deserved the same chances. Unaware that the Childs family receives welfare, morning, and do this all over again.” ◆ Despite escaping the gloomy shelters and crumbling apartments, Their debt quadrupled while they waited for paperwork to be fixed, and they the woman depicted recipients as sloths sitting at home, sending their children a steady beat of chaos remains. faced imminent eviction after missing rent payments, the family said. to overpriced day care centers. With a worsened financial situation, the family was told that December that “But is that who we are?” Ms. Childs asked, recalling the conversation. its rent was too high and its arrears too steep to qualify for assistance from the “The assumption is if you’re on public assistance, you don’t want to work. Yes, we Homelessness Diversion Units, so it was referred to the Neighborhood Association receive a check every month. But we also work and are involved in our kid’s for Inter-Cultural Affairs, a nonprofit organization providing housing intervention life. We’re working hard to make something of ourselves. So, no, that’s not who and assistance services. we are at all.” ◆

13 www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org Copyright ©2016 The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission. Copyright ©2017 The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission. www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org 14 Catholic Charities Centennial Initiatives Partnering with Our affiliates to Launch the Next Century of hope • FOSTERING EDUCATIONAL SUCCESS: • BUILDING AFFORDABLE HOUSING • HELPING THE VISUALLY IMPAIRED REMOVING EMOTIONAL OBSTACLES BUILDING 1,000 NEw A NEw SATELLITE EYE CLINIC EXPANDED SCHOOL-BASED AFFORDABLE APARTMENTS AT THE CATHOLIC CENTER A DEEPENED MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES IN THE BRONX CathOLIC GUILD FOR IN THE BRONX assOCIatION OF thE BLIND & thE sUNY astOR sERvICEs CathOLIC hOMEs COLLEGE OF OPtOMEtRY COMMITMENT TO • BETTER FOOD FOR BETTER LIVES • H.E.A.R.T. – HEROIN EPIDEMIC • FINDING HELP IN THE 21ST CENTURY ARCHDIOCESAN RESPONSE TEAM LINKING SUPPLEMENTAL HELP & HOPE FOOD TO SERVICES EXPANDING ACCESS TO EDUCATION AND EMPOwERING INDIVIDUALS RESOURCES FOR FOOD, PREVENTION: ADDRESSING TOwARD INDEPENDENCE HOUSING, ADDICTION & THE OPIOID CRISIS ON IN THE THROUGH A BRONX FOOD IMMIGRATION STATEN ISLAND HUB AND NETwORK OF CathOLIC ChaRItIEs CathOLIC ChaRItIEs OF ST FOOD PANTRIES MOBILE aPP statEN IsLaND 21 CENTURY CathOLIC ChaRItIEs COMMUNItY sERvICEs • INTERVENING EARLY TO EMPOWER • FURTHERING TREATMENT & • WELCOMING & SUPPORTING IMMIGRANTS DEVELOPMENTALLY CHALLENGED LIVES RECOVERY IN SULLIVAN COUNTY IN ANXIOUS TIMES A NEw EAST HARLEM BUILDING A NEw EMERGENCY ENFORCEMENT STATE-OF-THE-ART UP-TO-DATE RESIDENTIAL & HOTLINE & HUDSON EDUCATIONAL FACILITY OUTPATIENT CENTER IN VALLEY EXPANSION KENNEDY ChILD MONTICELLO CathOLIC ChaRItIEs stUDY CENtER CathOLIC ChaRItIEs OF COMMUNItY sERvICEs ORaNGE & sULLIvaN COUNtIEs

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15 www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org 16 New York Times METRO Wednesday, November 30, 2016 By MASHA GONCHAROVA Raising 2 Young Children by Herself, in a Space That Feels Not Big Enough

“He couldn’t handle it emotionally,” she said as she sat in one of the apartment’s only chairs, a tiny seat for her children. “It was too much for him to accept.” During the day, Ms. Infante works as a cashier at a Key Food grocery store, earning $800 a month and struggling because of her limited ability to speak English to earn a promotion. She said she did not want to depend on public assistance but had to, collecting about $1,050 a month combined in food stamps and disability benefits. At night, almost everything is a chore. While she prepares dinner or cleans the apartment, she tries to distract Geraliz with the iPad while hoping that Joshua does not start to cry. Doing the laundry meant lugging the dirty clothes to a laundromat two blocks away with the children in tow. To save money on drying, she would carry the wet clothes back to her fifth-floor walk-up and hang them on a line in the Ángel Franco/The New York Times hallway leading into the apartment. That cumbersome task was recently made easier. Catholic Charities Paola Infante with her daughter, Geraliz, and her son, Joshua, in their apartment Archdiocese of New York, one of the eight organizations supported by in Upper Manhattan. “I wish for a bigger apartment with all of my soul,” The New York Times’s Neediest Cases Fund, gave her $350 toward a she said. “A separate kitchen, this is all I need.” $800 washing machine and helped to have it installed in her apartment. Ms. Infante still line-dries the clothes. In her cramped apartment in Upper Manhattan, Paola Infante cooked It has also become less stressful to make sure that her children chicken and rice on a gas stove, stirring the meal as she kept an eye on are safe while she is at work. Catholic Charities guided Ms. Infante to her daughter, Geraliz, racing around the room. Each time the girl came enroll Geraliz at the Kennedy Child Study Center, an affiliate agency near the flames and kitchen knives, Ms. Infante used her body to gently that provides free services for children with developmental challenges. push her away. Ms. Infante said her daughter was getting better at communicating and, Geraliz, who is 4 and has autism, eventually distracted herself with the help of workers at the center, had learned how to grab ahold watching children’s shows on a pink-covered iPad. For the moment, of her when she needed attention. the possibility that she might get hurt had passed. The center also helped Ms. Infante enroll in English classes at the “So much nervousness,” Ms. Infante, 27, said in Spanish. “I wish City College of New York, which start in February. She said she wanted for a bigger apartment with all of my soul. A separate kitchen, this is all to earn a bachelor’s degree in childhood education and get a job as a I need.” teacher within five years. She added, “There’s been a lot of breaks and spills.” For those plans to work out, she will need to find a babysitter for Almost every surface in the small one-bedroom apartment doubles Joshua by the time classes begin. The center is also helping her make as a space for something else: pots and pans on top of magazines, those arrangements. children’s toys atop cleaning supplies and food wrappers. With no Ms. Infante said that her former boyfriend was still around. He lives formal kitchen area, a gas stove, a refrigerator and cabinets line the in a separate apartment in Upper Manhattan, works at another grocery 12-foot-by-15-foot living room’s back wall. store and pays the rent on Ms. Infante’s place. He visits the children Ms. Infante, who immigrated from the Dominican Republic, is raising “once or twice a week” at their apartment, she said, but she is not ready Geraliz and her 8-month-old son, Joshua, by herself. Geraliz communicates to welcome him back full time. in screeches and tugs at her mother. Joshua was born with a deformed “I don’t need anyone or anything,” she said, rising quickly to stir the heart, but will not be healthy enough for heart-valve surgery until he rice and check on the chicken. “I’m fine. What I need is a separate turns 1 in April. kitchen so I can cook without worrying about the kids.” ◆ Ms. Infante said the children’s father, her former boyfriend, had moved out because he did not feel that he could cope with the challenges involved in raising Geraliz. Supporting the Physically and Emotionally Challenged

17 www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org Copyright ©2016 The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission. www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org 18 New York Times METRO Saturday, December 31, 2016 By ANDY NEWMAN New York Times METRO Thursday, November 24, 2016 By JACLYN PEISER Calling on Angels While The Glorious Achievement of Enduring the Trials of Job Zipping Up a Sweatshirt

All the angels are gifts from friends and relatives, or picked up off the which was the back half of a fourth-floor walk-up apartment in street, just like all the furniture in the Muñizes’ overstuffed apartment in Washington Heights, in Upper Manhattan. The family owns the back a public-housing complex on Westchester Avenue in the Bronx, much of bedroom and living room but shares a kitchen with live-in neighbors. it restored by Ms. Muñiz. “So many people throw away things, so I don’t For the first few years of his daughter’s life, Mr. Alvarez was have to buy,” she said. Kenerly’s primary caretaker during the day because his wife works as a A second son, Jesus, became epileptic at 3. A girl, Maria, completed home attendant. With Mr. Alvarez injured and Kenerly struggling to the family. walk and climb stairs, father and daughter had to stay inside until In 2007, Mr. Muñiz had what felt like a horrible, stubborn toothache. Ms. Alvarez returned home. It turned out to be cancer of the lower jaw. Everyday tasks, such as changing her diaper and feeding Kenerly, Ms. Muñiz stayed in the room with her husband while he received are a struggle. She is not fully potty-trained and still uses diapers. radiation treatment. “I’m willing to take anything with him,” she said. It is difficult for Mr. Alvarez to lift her onto the toilet, and for a while “I never left him alone, and I never will.” she would use the bathtub instead. “I do things even though it’s hard,” Radiation did not work. To save Mr. Muñiz’s life, surgeons removed he said. his tongue and his lower jaw and cut a hole through his esophagus. Unable to lift her into a highchair, Mr. Alvarez had to improvise. Amir Levy for The New York Times Disfigured, depressed and unable to speak, he can consume nothing Elias Williams for The New York Times “It was hard for me to pick her up,” he said. “So I had to teach her how thicker than milk and needs near-constant care. to get up there by herself.” José Muñiz, center, with one of his three children, José Jr., and his wife, This is the household where the Muñiz children grew up. Jose and Yuny Alvarez with their daughter, Kenerly, in their home But Mr. Alvarez had help teaching his daughter to climb into the Zoraida, at their home in the Bronx. The family’s tribulations have in Manhattan. “We’ve been through every craziness,” said José Jr., 24, who has chair. In September last year, the family found Kennedy Child Study included cancer, epilepsy, depression and near eviction. suffered depression so severe that he dropped out of college and Center, an agency affiliated with the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese Jose Alvarez has trouble sleeping. It is the pain from his back injury. confined himself to the apartment, “every up and down.” of New York. Kenerly, who receives physical and occupational therapy Angels are everywhere in the Muñiz family’s apartment in the Bronx: It is the stress of paying the bills. It is the worry that his daughter will For years at a time, the family held on, seemingly by a thread. through the center, which helps children with developmental delays, is paintings of angels on the wall, ceramic angels flanking the ancient VCR, never live a normal life. Over the summer, the younger son, Jesus, 22, got a part-time job at learning to climb stairs and can now use a spoon to feed herself. angels strumming lyres or blowing little golden trumpets on the Mr. Alvarez’s life changed in 2005, when a car backed into him a Zaro’s Bakery in Manhattan’s financial district. Because the family’s “It takes a lot of pressure off me having the school and feeling like bathroom shelves. on 24th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues in Manhattan. rent is tied to income, the rent tripled in August, to about $770 a month I’m not the only person who can take care of my child,” Mr. Alvarez said. As José and Zoraida Muñiz and their children have struggled to deal Mr. Alvarez, now 63, was working as a boiler mechanic and welder at a from $245. But Jesus had school bills to pay, and the family paid some But with the added costs of Kenerly’s diapers and food, he still with a Job-like series of trials and setbacks, including cancer, debilitating few buildings on the street. Since the injury, he has been unable to work, of the funeral expenses for José Sr.’s mother, who died over the worries about paying the bills and even the rent. The couple receives epilepsy, deep depression and near eviction, it has sometimes seemed as because of herniated disks in his back. summer, and things began to unravel. about $2,500 a month total in benefits and in Ms. Alvarez’s pay. if angels and love were the only forces holding things together. A quick jerk or movement sends Mr. Alvarez into excruciating pain. They fell behind on the rent and utilities. Food was often scarce. “Sometimes we have to be late on the rent,” Mr. Alvarez said. Zoraida’s early life in Puerto Rico was like something from a Without a job, he relies on his mechanical worker’s pension and Social The family regularly skipped meals. “It’s hard, but we have to do it.” tropical Dickens novel. She and her siblings and mother built a house Security disability benefits. It was around this time that Ms. Muñiz got in touch with Catholic Catholic Charities, one of the eight organizations supported by by hand after a hurricane ravaged their home and the children’s father “I don’t feel like a man anymore,” he said. “I don’t have a lot of Charities Archdiocese of New York, one of the eight organizations The New York Times’s Neediest Cases Fund, used $297 to pay for withdrew support. Then Zoraida’s grandfather — the father of her absent movement, and the doctor says I should not pick up any more than supported by The New York Times’s Neediest Cases Fund. It covered diapers, wipes and clothes for Kenerly. father — destroyed the house in a rage. 12 pounds.” their back rent, got them warm coats and blankets and helped Kenerly, sporting her new pink-with-white-hearts Minnie Mouse She was barely a teenager when she met José, a Vietnam War His limited mobility has proved especially difficult because his them apply for food stamps for the first time. And with $600 from the zip-up sweatshirt, showed off her newfound skills by unzipping the veteran. With permission from her uncle, a judge, they were married. 4-year-old daughter, Kenerly, has Down syndrome. Neediest Cases Fund, the family paid its electric bill. jacket, something she was unable to do until she started going to She was 14. He was 29. Kenerly was born in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Things are looking up in some ways. Jesus is returning to college, Kennedy Child Study Center. She then went straight into the bedroom They moved to New York in 1983 and started a new life. He built Republic. When Mr. Alvarez and his wife, Yuny, found out that she had where he is on a pre-med track and wants to be a paramedic. Maria and emerged with her mother’s makeup. She climbed up on the reclining boilers. She worked in construction, using skills she learned as a child, Down syndrome, they were shocked and devastated. graduated in December from a two-year nursing program. Thinking of chair and began to apply it to her face. and in a clothing store. But in 1987, Mr. Muñiz began having violent “I cried,” Ms. Alvarez, 41, said. “I knew something was wrong when her father and his illness, she wants to be an oncologist. José Jr. was just “She’s a very special child,” Ms. Alvarez said. “She has a lot of seizures — eight or 10 a day. They did not respond to medication. He they didn’t bring me the baby right away.” accepted to the New York Film Academy’s photography program. personality.” could no longer work. She stopped working to take care of him. The parents knew they would need to move to New York, where they But José Sr. continues to battle cancer. Zoraida is severely depressed. But Mr. Alvarez still worries about Kenerly as she grows up. “Will she Still determined to live something like a normal life, they started a would have access to better health care for Kenerly. What keeps her going? she was asked. She gestured toward her be able to work? Make money? I often can’t sleep thinking about this,” family. Their first child, José Jr., had a heart defect. By the time he was The problem was getting into the country. For years, Mr. Alvarez, family, sitting beside her beneath the painted angels. “They give me my he said. “Will she ever get married? Have children?” 2 he had had six open-heart operations. who had initially moved to New York to work and send money back to strength, even if I have times I collapse,” she said. Kenerly is drawn to her father. It is as though being stuck in their That’s where the angels came in — the first one was a painting, a gift his family, tried to gain entry for his wife, whom he had met during one José Jr. agreed. “I use my parents and siblings as my motivation,” apartment all that time allowed them to form a particularly close bond. from a cousin. of his trips home. But immigration authorities questioned the legitimacy he said. She often climbs out of her crib near her parents’ bed and over her “When they operated on my son, they told me he was an angel, of their marriage, until January 2014, when the couple was able to move “We’re all there for each other,” Ms. Muñiz said. ◆ mother and snuggles up next to her father. because he was supposed to die,” Ms. Muñiz, 50, said. “From there I figured to New York, Mr. Alvarez said. “I love her so much,” Mr. Alvarez said, holding back tears. “You can’t that angels are taking care of me and protecting me and my family.” Leaving their entire support system behind in the Dominican v imagine how much I love her. I have her in my heart and soul.” Republic, Ms. Alvarez and Kenerly moved into Mr. Alvarez’s home,

19 www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org Copyright ©2016 The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission. Copyright ©2016 The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission. www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org 20 New York Times METRO Wednesday, November 23, 2016 By JOHN OTIS A Reunion 21 Years in the Making

“It was not enough to meet with her to have a baby,” Mr. Gebreselase said. On a visit home in 2005, Mr. Gebreselase, indignant about his conscription and about injustices in his country, held a meeting with villagers about a plan to criticize the government. His actions attracted the attention of the authorities, and he was arrested. Fearing the horrors that awaited him in jail, Mr. Gebreselase feigned a bathroom emergency — and made a run for it, reaching the refugee camp in Ethiopia. According to Amnesty International, the mass of young Eritrean people fleeing the country’s national service has contributed to the global refugee crisis. Mr. Gebreselase, separated from his wife, would not speak to her again until 2013; Ms. Kidane said that all she knew about her husband’s fate was that he was alive. In the camp, eight people were assigned to Brian Harkin for The New York Times share one small hut. Refugees were given paltry food rations and had to wait hours in line to get water, Mr. Gebreselase said. Sebentu Aynu Kidane with her husband, Melake Gebreselase, In 2013, Mr. Gebreselase received legal refugee status and arrived in eating a meal of injera in their apartment in the Bronx. New York, where he called his wife. He urged Ms. Kidane to go to Ethiopia and then to try to join him in the United States. He survived conscription in Eritrea, conspired to confront his country’s Mr. Gebreselase moved into an apartment in the Bronx with three injustices and faked an emergency to elude the authorities when they roommates and found work at a restaurant. He also enrolled in classes discovered his plan. He fled across the African country’s border to learn English. to Ethiopia and made his way to a refugee camp, braving horrific “From Monday up through Friday, I was working,” Mr. Gebreselase conditions and rationed food and water for a chance to eventually get to said. “Saturday, I was at school.” the United States. Mr. Gebreselase sent money to Ms. Kidane, who by then had reached Yet it was in a terminal at Kennedy International Airport in March Ethiopia, where she stayed first in a refugee camp and later in an that Melake Gebreselase was overcome with anxiety. Now living in apartment in Addis Ababa, the capital. Mr. Gebreselase said that the New York, he arrived there three hours before his wife of 21 years, more time passed, the more nervous he became about being able to have Sebentu Aynu Kidane, was supposed to exit customs. Then her plane a child with his wife before she grew too old. landed but she was nowhere to be found. Eventually, Ms. Kidane was granted refugee status, and she arrived “You can worry: ‘What happened? Did she not come?’”Mr. Gebreselase, at Kennedy on March 13. 38, said. The couple rented a single room for $600 a month in an apartment After a delay passing through immigration, however, Ms. Kidane, in the Bronx. They will have to find a new place to live, because the friend 41, emerged and they embraced, both free and together at last after years they are renting from will soon be having family members move in of forced separation, including a seven-year period during which they with him. did not speak to each other. For now, Mr. Gebreselase works six days a week at a restaurant, Mr. Gebreselase, who is still learning English, said in a recent where he earns $9.25 an hour. Ms. Kidane works part time at a hardware interview that he could not articulate in his new language the emotions store, earning $10 an hour. The couple also receives $39 a month in he felt that March day. Ms. Kidane, however, remembered what was on food stamps. her mind. Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, one of the eight “When I came here, I told him that I liked very, very much to have organizations supported by The New York Times’s Neediest Cases Fund, baby,” she said. “Now that I’m pregnant, I’m happy.” used $500 from the fund to enable the couple to buy a crib, a stroller In April, the couple will welcome their first child. Various forces and baby clothes. prevented them from starting a family for nearly two decades. They hope their child will be the first of at least two. Ms. Kidane The couple married in 1995 in Eritrea, where military conscription expects to enroll in nursing school soon. Mr. Gebreselase is considering is mandatory and indefinite. Mr. Gebreselase was pulled into military becoming a cabdriver. He is committed to remaining in New York. service a couple of years after he married Ms. Kidane. He hoped he would “If you don’t work hard, you will not have,” Mr. Gebreselase said. have to serve for only a year and a half. After eight years, he felt certain “We’re going to work hard. We need a good life.” ◆ he would be stuck there until retirement. The only time he saw his wife, Welcoming and Integrating friends and other relatives was during periods of leave that lasted Immigrants and Refugees roughly 10 days.

21 www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org Copyright ©2016 The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission. www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org 22 New York Times METRO Sunday, December 4, 2016 By KENNETH R. ROSEN New York Times METRO Sunday, January 29, 2017 By LISA W. FODERARO Happy to Do Homework After a Mother and Son Reunite Only to Long Journey From Guatemala Face Her Cancer Diagnosis

Joseph R. Biden Jr., on a visit to Guatemala in 2014, called the surge of She is too tired and nauseated to cook, clean or do laundry, so those refugees a “humanitarian crisis.” tasks have fallen to Mr. Ramos. And his mother is visibly frustrated that Alex said that for several days he was kept in a holding cell, which he her son has put off his goals on account of her. (While he studied referred to as an ice box because of the temperature inside. He said computer science for three years at a university, he hopes to pursue a he was verbally assaulted and was rarely given enough blankets to degree in psychology.) keep warm at night. “I want him to study and really learn English and prepare for life in “I waited three days, there on the floor,” he said. “It was really dirty. the United States,” she said, sitting on a day bed and rubbing her leg, They called me then and said, ‘O.K., you can go with your cousin, which was in pain. “I want him to have a career.” who’s in Houston,’ but no one answered the phone there. Then, after Soon after arriving in the United States, Mr. Ramos was helped by that, they didn’t call me.” Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New York, one of the eight organizations Without a place to go, the authorities kept him at the detention supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. The group’s center, transferring him from one cell to another. immigration department processed his application to the Central Six days later, the Department of Homeland Security designated American Minors program and helped acclimate him to American life. Alex an unaccompanied minor, and he was transferred by the federal It led him through the process of applying for Medicaid and for food Stephen Speranza for The New York Times Office of Refugee Resettlement to the Lincoln Hall Boys’ Haven in stamps, among other benefits. Lincolndale, N.Y., which at the time housed underage and undocumented Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times Catholic Charities also helped him enroll in an English language Alex Chan, 17, was able to secure residency in the United States through immigrants without guardians. Mirna Ramos with her son Miguel, 22, this month in their apartment in class, but because of his mother’s illness, Mr. Ramos has put it off the Special Immigrant Juveniles program. The office tried to get Alex to his cousin in Houston, without Yonkers, where they live with her younger son. After years apart, for now. success. Alex’s mother then put him in touch with her friend’s son, who Mr. Ramos moved from Honduras to be with her. Yet he knows that learning English — and quickly — is critical to A tumbledown home with a tin roof high in the mountains of Guatemala was living and working in Brooklyn. The man agreed to sponsor Alex in finding a job to support his family and eventually attending college. had no electricity or beds, only tattered clothing and rationed food. his petition to stay in the country through the federal Special Immigrant YONKERS — Miguel Ramos’s mother, Mirna, set off for the United For now, he is doing what he can to study English on his own. To help, At breakfast, Alex Chan and his three siblings shared a single egg, Juveniles program, which helps secure green cards for foreign children States when he was almost 4. She was both running away from a violent Catholic Charities used $249 in Neediest Cases funds to buy him an split into quarters. At night, they went to bed hungry as they waited in who were neglected. domestic situation and running toward the same opportunities that have online Rosetta Stone course in English and an additional $246 to buy fear of their father. The sponsorship was overseen by the Unaccompanied Minors drawn generations of immigrants toward America’s borders. a Chromebook. Beatings began without warning. Once, his 7-year-old sister was Program at Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New York, one of the eight Left behind, Mr. Ramos bounced between aunts and uncles in his Money is a constant worry. His mother pays $1,300 month in rent burned with boiling water their father tossed on her. More often, as the organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. native Honduras and in Guatemala. At 10 he was forced to sell clothes and has only enough savings to cover the family’s expenses through the children tried to fall asleep on empty stomachs, they could hear their An immigration judge approved Alex’s petition last March, and he door to door; at 14, he milked cows and did farm chores starting at 3 a.m. end of February. If Ms. Ramos, who earned $26,000 a year as a butcher, father pummeling their mother after coming home from a dinner of settled into his sponsor’s apartment in the East Midwood section But all along, he managed to stay in school, and he even attended college is not well enough to return to work, they do not know how they will pay chicken and beer in town, in San José Poaquil. of Brooklyn. for a few years. And while he saw his mother just twice for brief visits in the rent. They also have monthly bills — $130 for phone service and $180 Their father reserved the harshest beatings for Alex, he said, They go shopping together and attend a church youth group. Alex the 17 years after she left for the United States, he would talk to her for electricity. and they are his earliest memories. Alternating between a rope, a stick enrolled at the International High School in Brooklyn, where he is a nearly every day as he grew older. “As long as we have the rent and food, we’ll be O.K.,” said and a machete, his father would beat him for attending school instead junior and has a 3.8 G.P.A., he said. In October, Mr. Ramos finally came to the United States to be Ms. Ramos, trying to stay positive. of working in the fields. He enjoys math and science, happy to work on his homework at a reunited with his mother. A new program aimed at Central American Her younger son, Denilson, is a senior at Saunders Trades and He had to get away. lamp-lit desk and sleep on a bed in his own room. After school, he works minors provides young people from Honduras, Guatemala and El Technical High School. An honors student, he is now applying to college First, he ran to Guatemala City, around 45 miles from home, where four to five hours a week as a cook at a Japanese restaurant and makes Salvador with a safe, legal alternative to the perilous journey by car, and plans to study engineering. he said he was threatened by gang members trying to recruit him. $12.50 an hour. The job sometimes interferes with homework, but it by foot and over rivers that many make to reach the United States. “I feel very weird not being able to bring something to the table,” He fled back home, then tried to leave again, this time with a longer trip allows him to contribute $200 a month for living expenses. He used He settled into her simple apartment building here, about five miles Mr. Ramos said about his lack of income. “It’s stressing me out because planned: to a cousin in Houston. Before heading out, he considered to send $500 a month home to his mother and siblings in Guatemala, north of the Bronx in Westchester County. The stairs leading to the I don’t know English. I don’t even know how to order food when telling the police about his father’s abuse. But the police rarely answered but has cut back on his work hours to focus on school, and now sends second floor list to one side. Ms. Ramos, 47, also has a 17-year-old son, I go out.” calls to his town, with the nearest police station more than two about $300. Denilson Gonzalez, who was born in the United States. Her two sons Nonetheless, he says that being with his mother these past few hours away. Alex said he was “very happy because I can do what I need to do share a bedroom. months has been transformative, despite the uncertainty and hardship. “I knew other kids whose parents hit them,” Alex, 17, said in a with respect to my homework,” a stark difference from his home in “It was worth the wait,” Mr. Ramos said through a translator. “Living with her is the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said. written affidavit in Brooklyn Family Court last year, “and no one ever Guatemala. Smiling broadly in his Mickey Mouse T-shirt, he added, “Ever since “There’s a connection. She understands me, supports me and is proud did anything to help them.” On a warm day last month, Alex met with his lawyer, who told him I can remember, I’ve wanted to be with her.” of me.” Alex hopped on a double-decker bus to Mexico. Another bus brought in Spanish that he had received a green card and had been granted But the joyous reunion was bracketed by tragedy. A few months Perhaps it is his mother’s faith in him that allows Mr. Ramos to him near the United States border. During the roughly two-week journey, full-residency status that day. Alex could now live, work and study before Mr. Ramos arrived, Ms. Ramos’s husband — Denilson’s father — imagine a future in which he chases not only a career in psychology, but he said he was often robbed and rarely had food. He held out hope that permanently in the United States. died unexpectedly of an aneurysm. Two months after Mr. Ramos moved other passions. He envisions creating a foundation someday to assist he would soon unite with his cousin. But in June 2014, while trying to Alex had many questions, including whether he had heard his lawyer in, his mother was told that she had Stage 4 cancer, which had started others. “I would like to help people with cancer through psychology, cross the border into Texas, he was caught by immigration officials and correctly. After he absorbed the life-changing news, he smiled. in her breast and spread to her lungs and liver. maybe even financially,” he said. sent to a detention center. He could go anywhere.In October, to help with his studies, Catholic Now, instead of taking a crash course in English — Mr. Ramos He also aspires to travel. And he yearns to dance. “I love meringue, From fall 2013 to summer 2014, more than 50,000 children from Charities used $330 raised by the Neediest Cases Fund to provide Alex speaks almost none — and trying to get a job, he is caring full time for hip-hop and salsa,” he said, the anxiety etched on his face melting at Central America entered the United States illegally, many riding atop with a new laptop and a desk with storage cabinets. ◆ his mother. She is on a three-month leave from her job in the meat the thought. “I would like to dance for someone famous. Maybe Ricky train cars or floating on inner tubes to cross the border. Vice President department of the Stew Leonard’s food store in Yonkers, and recently Martin or Lady Gaga.” began receiving chemotherapy. Nearby, his mother beamed. v

23 www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org Copyright ©2016 The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission. www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org 24 New York Times METRO Tuesday, February 7, 2017 By STEVE KENNY Family Has Come a Long Way Since Receiving $289 Seven Years Ago

It was the goals, dreams and hopes of the Byerses that led the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, one of the eight organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, to give them $289 seven years ago — $110 for an electric mixer and baking tins for Daniel, $50 for Rayshell’s application fee to an after- school arts program and $129 for a toolbox for Curtis. Ms. Byers and her sons are not sure where the mixer and toolbox went. “We put it in the bank,” she said. “And it went to good use.” Strangers still mistake Ms. Byers for her children’s grandmother, which did not bother her in 2009 and does not bother her now. She took in all three as foster babies — they are genetic siblings — and formally adopted them when she was in her 60s, after her own son had grown. “I guess they keep me young,” she said. During a recent interview, it hardly seemed that seven years had passed, except that Ms. Byers’s sons are taller. (Daniel is 6 feet 6 inches, Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times and Curtis is just a few inches shorter.) Daniel gets Rayshell on Lynette Byers and her children, Curtis, left, Daniel, right, and Rayshell, FaceTime, and the Byerses huddle around on Ms. Byers’s easy chair for on the phone, recently gathered for a chat. “I can text her,” Ms. Byers said of a talk that defies both time and distance. Rayshell, who attends Salem College, “and if she doesn’t get back to me, Rayshell talks classes: criminal law, psychology, English, professional I’m right on the phone.” writing. “You can tell you’re going to be a lawyer,” her mother teases. “You keep talking.” In 2009, Rayshell Byers was an ambitious 14-year-old with dreams Daniel pulls out his personal phone, which is filled with photos of of college and law school and a grand plan to pay for it with a modeling dishes he has created: his own spins on baked chicken, rice and cabbage, career. Seven years later, she is in her second year of college, and law shrimp Alfredo, a variety of soul food dishes and lots of Mexican food. school is in reach. (With a scholarship in hand, modeling is no longer a “I like spicy,” he said. financial requirement.) Daniel added that he spends at least three hours a day cooking, In 2009, Curtis Byers was a shy 16-year-old with a halo of hair, an even on days when he is not working. aptitude for science and an allergy to school. Seven years later, the halo And that is fine with Ms. Byers, who is content to let Daniel do the has been buzzed short, but the love of science remains and he is aiming shopping and the cooking, even if he is not as good with the cleaning up. for a career in veterinary care. Daniel’s restaurant jobs mean long hours — he sometimes leaves the In 2009, the oldest of the three Byers siblings, Daniel, was 17 and house at 4 a.m. — and he is trying to save for culinary school. Right now, a student at Park West High School in Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan, Ms. Byers said, “It costs too much, and he doesn’t want to go into debt.” where he was preparing for a career in cooking. Seven years later, he is Curtis, then as now, is the quietest, and still does not like to talk a professional cook, with a string of restaurant jobs and catering work on about himself unless the subject is his skill at video games. Then he gets his résumé. His current goal: culinary school (and a way to pay for it). very technical in a blur of conversation about the tools he uses, the games And from her two-bedroom Harlem apartment, Lynette Byers, he plays and the avatars he employs. “It started when I was young,” he now 85, keeps an eye on all three — the boys still at home and Rayshell said. “I got into it with the graphics.” in her second year at Salem College, an all-women’s university in But when talk turns to the future, Curtis grows more serious: “I want Winston-Salem, N.C. That is a little too far for Ms. Byers’s complete to work with animals.” Financing that education is a problem here, too. comfort, even though Rayshell has provided her with an iPhone to keep The family’s participation in the Neediest Cases campaign looms in touch via text and FaceTime. large in their memories. It goes beyond the money itself. “I can text her,” Ms. Byers said, “and if she doesn’t get back to me, “It made me realize,” Rayshell said, “that I wanted to be in a position I’m right on the phone.” where I could be the one to help.” v

Happy Endings

25 www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org Copyright ©2017 The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission. www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org 26 volunteers, created plots for neighbors to grow vegetables, hosted job From College Hopes to fairs and invited children from the juvenile justice system to shave off service hours through gardening. Ms. Sadoff said Mr. Young’s work in the garden would be used Immigrant Travails, as a model for her group’s neighborhood reclamation initiative, which will start in the South Bronx with the intention of spreading Neediest Cases Had Global Reach nationwide. The newly formed alliance aims to build gardens and expand community programs in some of the almost 600 community Donations were up for the fund-raising campaign in 2016 -17, gardens in New York City. In March, Mr. Young became a primary adviser for the program, as the fund again showed how even modest giving can which may turn into a part-time consulting job. greatly improve lives. In the face of Mr. Trump’s emphasis on tougher immigration policies, readers took particular interest in the stories of immigrants and their pursuit of the American dream. New York Times METRO Saturday, April 8, 2017 By EMILY PALMER and JOHN OTIS Several large donations were made to individual families: $5,000 Christopher Lee for The New York Times to Flor de Maria Rivera’s family, reunited after nine years apart and a Michael Young and his daughter, Jada. With the help of a Neediest Cases article, perilous journey, guided by a smuggler, from El Salvador to the United he was recruited to advise a new alliance promoting community gardens. States; and $10,000 to Miguel Ramos and his mother, Mirna, who fled Three college scholarships. The possibility of a job after nine years This year the International Rescue Committee, a worldwide aid Honduras and were separated for 17 years, only to meet again last fall without one. Temporary immigration approval after years of waiting. group based in New York that helps refugees and vulnerable populations, when she received a Stage 4 cancer diagnosis. All the families said they And a $10,000 check made out to a Honduran family at a time when joined the campaign. For the first time in Neediest Cases history, stories When Elizabeth Sadoff, a co-founder of the Turnaround Community planned to put the money toward rent. President Trump is enacting strict policies on immigration. were told about people in distress outside the New York City area. Garden Alliance, read about the Young family, which led the charge to “It’s not the lesson of how bad my life got,” (one family) said. “It’s the For 105 years, The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund has told Those stories highlighted the plights of refugees trying to flee conflict. revive its neighborhood Padre Plaza/Success Garden in the Bronx after lesson of how good my life is going to be.” v the stories of struggling New Yorkers, highlighting how even modest “The International Rescue Committee has taken New York Times the garden was laid to waste with drugs and garbage, she offered donations can drastically improve their lives, and raising funds for readers from Nigeria to Oakland,” said David Miliband, the president employment. beneficiary agencies across the city. and chief executive of the organization. He added that the stories Michael Young, who had been unemployed since heart surgery The 2016-17 campaign, which ran from Nov. 13 to Feb. 10, raised “illustrate the humanity behind the refugee crisis — the most challenging in 2008, has volunteered daily in the garden. He has rallied other $6,177,625 — more than half a million more than the year before. since World War II — and the breadth of the work I.R.C. does to The Neediest Cases Fund is steeped in tradition, beginning in 1912 mitigate it.” with the mission of helping lift people who need help, whether it is The other organizations, which all work in the New York area, finding a job or paying for a subway fare. The fund has long relied on are Brooklyn Community Services, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese the generosity of readers to help people like those profiled in the stories. of New York, Catholic Charities Brooklyn and Queens, the Children’s But this year, the campaign broadened its scope, collecting donations Aid Society, the Community Service Society of New York, UJA-Federation online through a collaboration with GoFundMe and adding a new of New York and FPWA, formerly the Federation of Protestant Welfare beneficiary organization. Agencies. The organizations spend the money at their discretion, often The changes to Neediest Cases helped bring in donations from to cover gaps in public assistance. people in all 50 states, and from 24 countries; many donors, moved by In addition to reader donations, Citigroup, a longtime donor to the the individual stories told during the fund-raising campaign, gave fund, spearheaded several fund-raising initiatives within its organization, directly to the people featured in more than 70 articles. contributing $27,296 to the campaign. The Times Company pays for all “The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund is relevant now more the administrative costs of the fund. It invests unrestricted contributions than ever,” said Eileen Murphy, the senior vice president of corporate of $100,000 or more from trusts and estates in an endowment. The income communications for The Times. “And our most recent campaign flows into the next year’s campaign. speaks to the heart of who we are: a global organization serving a global While the campaign tracks monetary donations, some gifts were community.” given this year in ways that were harder to quantify.

27 www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org Copyright ©2017 The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission. Copyright ©2017 The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission. www.CatholicCharitiesNY.org 28 New York Times METRO Friday, December 23, 2016 By N. R. KLEINFIELD Brothers Holding Up Each Other, Featured Agencies in the Wake of a Crushing Loss The Catholic Charities, a federation of 90 agencies in New York City and the Hudson Valley, provides services that touch almost every human need. Below are federation agencies Mr. Perry is working part time at a LensCrafters store. He thinks he wants to get into artist management at a record company, or something whose work was highlighted in the 2016-2017 New York Times Neediest Cases Campaign along those lines. and featured in this publication. Meanwhile, they began a clothing line. They originally called it Eyewear Fashion, since both of them wear glasses, as did their mother, who donated her eyes to the American Cancer Society. They are now calling it Invader Nation clothing. They have been selling their wares at a flea market on Roosevelt Island. Intermingled memories of their mother are always with them. “It’s still surreal,” Mr. Perry said. “A feeling like it will never go away. Since my mother’s passing, my brother and I have had this attitude: We got to get going. We got to keep rolling.” “There are times the lack of her presence weighs on me,” Mr. Steinberg said. “So we try to push forward.” They have been helped extensively by Catholic Charities Archdiocese Amir Levy for The New York Times of New York, one of the eight organizations supported by The New York Andre Steinberg, left, and Jamal Perry in their Bronx apartment last month. Times’s Neediest Cases Fund. Another organization, the Children’s Aid Society, assisted Ms. Young before she died. Catholic Big Sisters and Big Brothers Kennedy Child Study Center The brothers enjoy their endless little debates. They could be over The brothers received money so they could buy some furniture. 137 East 2nd. Street — 2nd. Floor, New York, NY 10009 1028 East 179th Street, Bronx, NY 10460 something of importance, but then again, maybe not. Just the other Catholic Charities enlisted Mr. Perry in a number of programs to help Phone: (212) 475-3291 Phone: (718) 842-8942 with the vicissitudes governing his young life. Mr. Steinberg got a job as week, they got at it over how many Batman movies there had been. Founded in 1904, Catholic Big Sisters has provided comprehensive In 1958 when children with developmental disabilities were often Why, obviously there had been four, according to Andre Steinberg. a junior designer in the organization’s communications department. mentoring programs for more than 100 years. To bolster its services warehoused into institutions, the Archdiocese of New York established What is wrong with you, there were seven, Jamal Perry insisted. So much of their lives has been defined by being together. and avoid duplication, it merged with Catholic Big Brothers in 2005 the Kennedy Child Study Center to instead provide them with learning They checked the internet. Seven (ignoring the recent joint appearance Analyzing their future, they are prepared for separation. to form Catholic Big Sisters and Big Brothers. Today, Catholic Big opportunities. One of the first programs in the nation of its kind, the Mr. Perry said: “We are me now. We can’t stay together forever. Sisters and Big Brothers focus on strengthening a child’s entire family. Kennedy Child Study Center was initially funded by a grant from Rose with Superman). It trains volunteers to serve as friends and guides to young F. and Joseph P. Kennedy in memory of their son, Lt. Joseph P. Then Mr. Perry mentioned that George Clooney had once been Even if our mother would have wanted that. ” persons in need throughout New York City’s five boroughs, non Kennedy, Jr. Sponsored by the Catholic Charities Alliance, the center Batman. Mr. Steinberg said, “No way.” Mr. Steinberg said: “It’s getting to that point where we have to fly, Catholics and Catholics alike. Comprehensive programs provide one- provides educational and therapeutic services for children with The internet confirmed victory for Mr. Perry. but alone. Another gem from our mother on self-sufficiency: If you wait to-one mentoring and support for children ages 10-18, family-focused developmental disabilities and delays along with counseling and The brothers were together in their Bronx apartment, perched on on someone to help you, you’ll wait forever. It’s time for us to invest in counseling and skills-building workshops. support services for their families. their couch. It was dusk, shadows retiring outside. As always, they were ourselves and look to our futures.” so at ease with each other. “He’s my brother,” Mr. Steinberg went on. “But understand, They are a unit, joined by blood and tragedy. Tracy Young, their single he’s annoying. I don’t mind him being here. But time apart is well spent.” mother, died in 2008 from colon cancer at 37. It happened two days Mr. Perry: “Yeah, he’s older than me. I look at him — he’s old! before Thanksgiving, and with their hearts ripped out it was hard for That’s why he’s annoying. I look at the food he likes. It’s weird.” them to understand what they had to be thankful for. Mr. Perry was then Mr. Steinberg: “He’s loud. He likes to clap his hands and snap for 16, and Mr. Steinberg was 19. no reason.” Not long afterward, they moved together into the apartment they Mr. Perry: “I play my music loud.” still share. For a while, Mr. Perry spent time with his father on Roosevelt Mr. Steinberg: “Me, I can go hours with silence.” Island, but for the most part they shaped their lives together, propping Mr. Perry has been mulling graduate school, as well as maybe each other up with megadoses of affection. Each of them is the best moving permanently down South, where he has relatives and might find person the other knows. work. “I don’t think I know myself yet,” Mr. Perry said. “I’m trying to Grappling with an unmoored future, they built upon the guidance find that out.” Both are very close to their mother’s twin sister, Tina Young, that their mother had imparted to them. Such as: “Always strive, Create, Inc. St. Anthony Shelter for Renewal don’t be complacent.” And: “Stand for something or fall for anything.” who lives in Taneytown, Md. One of her daughters, Jasmine Williams, And: “Do what you have to do, so you can do what you want to do.” who is 24, has a rare immune disorder. Her health recently took a bad 73 Lenox Avenue, New York, NY 10026 410 East 156 Street, Bronx, NY 10455 Phone: (212) 663-1596 Phone: (718) 933-5161 They did just that. In 2014, Mr. Steinberg graduated from the turn and Mr. Perry has decided to go in a few weeks to act as her home New York City College of Technology. Mr. Perry graduated in May from health aide for at least six months. Determined to confront increasing poverty, homelessness, chemical Founded by the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal in 1993, Saint Anthony the State University of New York at Old Westbury. But the brothers’ bond will never disappear. Mr. Perry said, abuse and unemployment in Harlem, Fr. Benedict Taylor, OFM, Shelter cares for the long-term needs of homeless men 18 years or It has been rocky getting their careers going, but they are moving “I’ll always pick my brother over anyone else in the world.” a Franciscan Friar at St. Francis Assisi Church, and Ralph Perez, older in New York City. It provides a living environment spiritually “Yeah,” Mr. Steinberg said. “He summed it up perfect.” v a St. Francis Assisi Church lay worker, founded Create, Inc. in 1970. rooted in the Catholic tradition while respecting the diversity forward lurchingly. Mr. Steinberg is a graphic designer. He had a contract The agency provides treatment and recovery services for chemically and conscience of individual guests. With guidance from friars and with Bank of America doing graphic design, but that ended in June. dependent men and women, specialized services for those with mental volunteers, the shelter community becomes a school and clinic where He has been freelancing while looking to line up a full-time position. health issues, transitional living for homeless young adults, permanent guests can learn about themselves, their wounds and the subsequent housing and support services for single-parent women, vocational path to recovery. This work is conducted mainly through a daily counseling, job preparation and placement, day services for the elderly structured environment, an emphasis on personal responsibility and and emergency food for the hungry. a nightly schedule of in-house programs.

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