Hide Article Text (OCR)
Holidays gloomier at clinic where founder hospitalizedBOYNTON BEACH (AP) — Migrant advocate * Caridad Asensio has delighted children with toys at Christmas for 20 years. This year, the tradition was broken.Asensio was in a car accident and has been in a coma for three weeks, making this the first time since 1981 that the area’s farm worker community has celebrated the holidays without her.Back then, she handed out popcorn and a single used toy to 300 students at an elementary school where she was a health care worker. The toy drive grew, and this year, 6,000 new toys w7ere collected. Some were distributed to 1.000 needy children at threeholiday parties at her clinic, which provides free medical, dental and vision care to 1,700 indigent farm workers each month.But absent was the charismat\ ic, energetic Cuban-American grandmother, the leading advocate for Palm Beach County’s farm workers. She*s known to make miracles happen for the thousands who plant, harvest and pack fruits and vegetables.Now, she needs a miracle.“If there’s a miracle in the works ... it ought to be this lady” said Rev. Ted Bush, a pastor at First Presbyterian Church in nearby Delray Beach who has known Asensio for 15 years.At 70, Asensio continued towork tirelessly up until her accident. She raised more than $1 million each year to run the Caridad Health Clinic and Migrant Association of South Florida, which she also founded to provide tutoring, college scholarships, food, clothing, shelter and other emergency services.There’s numerous stories of her generosity. The Mexican boy who got a donated prosthetic arm; the little girl with cancer who received free chemotherapy and is alive today at 18; the 175 families who have homes thanks to’ trailers she had donated.And on Christmas Eve, volunteers plan to continue another tradition, passing out the remainingpresents to children in migrant camps and the area’s poorest neighborhoods.“We have faith that she will be back in full form,” said Connie Berry, the migrant association’s vice president. “We’re trying to keep up her work.”On Dec. 3, Asensio was struck by a car while crossing the street near her home in Boca Raton. She remains in critical but stable condition at Delray Medical Center. In the first few days, hundreds of migrant families gathered at the hospital to pray for her.“If she’s not here it will go on, but it won’t be the same,” said Nury Torres, 20, whose family gets food and medical services fromthe clinic. “She puts more into the job, more than she has to.”Torres moved from Mexico with her family in 1990. She said Asensio made sure she learned English and had school supplies. She graduated last year and wants to become a paramedic in the Army.“We still need her,” she said. “She’s not done.”Asensio first organized annual health fairs in a school parking lot. She opened the clinic in a dou-blewide trailer in 1989.“We had three dental chairs on one side and three examining rooms on the other side,” Berry said. “People just came and came and came.”After raising $2 million, the clinic opened in a permanent building in 1992. The clinic’s 700 volunteers will continue to try to raise another $2 million to realize Asensio’s plans to expand the cramped clinic and offer educational programs.Asensio came to the United States from Cuba in 1960. Her friends said she never forgot those tough times and believes all hardworking people deserve access to food, clothing, education and health care.“My wife used to say, this is a gift that I give to America,” her husband, Manuel Asensio, said through tears as he pointed to the clinic.
Newspaper Details
Northwest Florida Daily News
Fort Walton Beach, Florida, US
Tue, Dec 25, 2001
Page 6
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 07 Apr 2020
Other Publications Near Fort Walton Beach, Florida
Playground Daily News
Fort Walton Beach Playground Sunday News
Fort Walton Beach Playground Daily News
Northwest Florida Daily News Sunday
Northwest Florida Daily News
