Threads of Love

On the first Thursday of every month, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Nogales, Ariz. is turned into a medical clinic. Health practitioners, volunteers, and interpreters head down to St. Andrew's Children's Clinic to provide Mexican children with medical services.

On Thursday, Nov. 6, my journalism class visited the clinic to cover stories about its patients and staff for Border Beat, our student-run online publication.

St. Andrew's Clinic's services are free. The doctors and nurses leave their own practices to come to Nogales to work on these children simply out of the goodness of their hearts. I was truly amazed by the amount of care the staff gave to each patient.

St. Andrew's Clinic performs services in a variety of specialized areas from audiology to orthotics. In addition to the medical treatments it offers, the clinic also distributes donated clothing and food to the children and their families.

The church garden is transformed into a mini superstore. On a rack hang sweaters, jackets, and dresses of all shades and sizes. Colorful pairs of sneakers rest on the tiered ledges of the garden's stone fountain. Shopping bags filled to the brim with clothes cover the ground for visitors to rummage through.

For the last 8 years, one volunteer in particular has made the Church's distribution garden an important part of her life and vice versa. Rosemary Fitzpatrick sees it as a place where she can help children in need and watch as they gratefully accept the garments she's knitted for them.

Fitzgerald dedicates her spare time to knitting garments for the clinic. "I can knit and watch TV, I can knit and talk, I knit in the car if someone else is driving, not when I'm driving," Fitzgerald said. With that time she produces knitted hat and scarf sets, sweaters, and afghans for the children. Her individual goal is to produce 52 garments a year, finishing one every week.

"I get so choked up when I see somebody take something I've made and hug it because to me that's what I work for," Fitzpatrick said.