Post 14 Busca un Amigo Puerto Vallarta

The Mexican resort city of Puerto Vallarta greets visitors with stately hotels on pristine beaches, a relaxing atmosphere, and unique dining and shopping options. Just a few miles from the vibrant coastline, however, garbage piles up alongside dirt and cobblestone streets. Graffiti marks buildings in various states of disrepair. Struggle is etched in the faces of those living here. 

Thank you to Southwest Auto Transport for their continued support for our post.

Outside the Busca un Amigo (“search for friends”) day care center, dogs and chickens scurry along the road. Inside, teachers, physical therapists and others bring comfort to 45 children and adults suffering from cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, schizophrenia and various other physical and/or mental disabilities. This is their safe haven.

Not only does the center help the children, it takes a heavy burden off the parents, poorest of the poor, who must work to survive and cannot care for their disabled children during the day. While the parents work, children at the facility receive care that includes two meals a day and a snack, basic lessons and therapy – exercise, music, dance, water and even equine activities.

For all of this, the parents are charged 40 pesos a day (roughly $2 to $3). For parents who cannot afford it, Busca un Amigo covers the cost. 

Irma Guzmán knows how important Busca un Amigo is for her 17-year-old son, Rolando, who was born with a brain defect that impairs his motor skills. When Rolando first started at the school six years ago, he was unable to walk. 

“He couldn’t come downstairs before, and now it’s hard for us to keep him stopped,” Guzmán says through a translator. “He can control his motor skills and be in control of his hands. Now he is more social with everybody else. At my house I wouldn’t be able to do that for him because I work. I know that this is a place that they can get the support and therapy they need. And he is in a safe place for the time that I go and work.”

Successes such as Rolando’s can be credited in part to American Legion Post 14 in Puerto Vallarta, which began refurbishing the facility about eight years ago. Windows were broken out. Floors were covered with dirt. The center’s only refrigerator didn’t work.

Thanks to Post 14, the facility has new bathrooms and windows, brightly painted walls, a therapy pool and showers, a clean courtyard, and functioning refrigerators and freezers. It’s one of the post’s 30 ongoing community service projects.

“The American Legion is about helping people in need,” says Fred Crowley, a 35-year member. “When Legionnaires go some place and they see people who are in need – whether or not they are hungry, homeless or whatever it is – the Legion either helps individually or they get some sort of program. They don’t just help once, but they constantly stay with them.”

Crowley is motivated by the children’s smiles and tears he still sheds for a girl named Angelina, who had Down syndrome but brought joy to everyone who knew her at Busca un Amigo. “She was coming here for years and years, then all of a sudden the parents couldn’t get her to and from the school,” Crowley recalls. “Basically her parents just left her in the corner of the house and didn’t feed her or anything else, and she died of malnutrition. In the United States, they would be in jail, but here it’s just another part of life.”

TEACH A MAN TO PAINT … Post 14 members are known locally for their tireless work at schools, community centers, child care facilities and other places.

“The post was like a snail, hiding back in its shell,” Commander Dennis Rike says. “We wanted to get the Legion’s name out to the community to grow our membership. The main mission is to help the veterans, and of course the children.”

The post has painted the inside and outside of a local children’s cancer center, where members have also installed playground equipment and provided toys. At a school for deaf children, they put in lighting, ceiling fans and window screens.

Members also venture to remote areas of western Mexico to offer their support. For example, the jungle town of Boca de Tomatlán is a 45-minute drive from the heart of Puerto Vallarta. After arriving in town, the trek to the junior-senior high school requires crossing a river on a rickety pedestrian bridge and a half-mile uphill walk on a dirt and stone path. There are no school buses or parent car pools for these students. Most commute 30 minutes by boat one way.

The Legion post set up computer equipment, provided and installed bathroom fixtures, and painted the walls. The post is also working closely with other organizations to establish a three-floor medical and dental facility in Boca de Tomatlán to care for those who live nearby and for those who can travel there by boat.

Regardless of a project’s scope, Rike’s philosophy is the same: provide the resources – paint, brushes, tools, etc. – and inspire others to participate because it “gives them a stake in it.”

A PLACE TO PLAY A couple of years ago, Post 14 members began cleaning up a park in a rough part of town. It had been overtaken by weeds, garbage and graffiti. Neighbors scattered, not knowing what the volunteers were doing when they came to restore it. 

“They didn’t know how to react,” Department of Mexico Commander Ron Abbe says. “Actually, one time we were painting graffiti off the walls. We came back to the post the next day and they had put graffiti on our post (sign) because we had American Legion signs. I guess the kids didn’t like us painting it over. Now they see us doing it and will come out and even help. They help clean up sometimes, and they are thanking us.”

The park is now a clean, safe refuge for children. Recently the Legion put in teeter-totters to go along with other playground equipment, in addition to weight benches, two full-length soccer fields and a basketball court. Women practice Zumba in the mornings and evenings on the basketball court. 

Earlier this year, the park was dedicated and named after Post 14 member Jay Sadler. At the ceremony, Candelaria Tovar Hernández – president of a local organization that supports children – thanked Legionnaires for revitalizing the park. 

“We value you,” she said as a handful of children happily kicked soccer balls on the basketball court while dozens of others played on the fields. “We appreciate what you have done for us from the heart.”

For Sadler, this is an example of the Legion’s commitment to Puerto Vallarta.

“The American Legion is a great group of people,” he says. “Members not only served their country but are involved with the community here. When we came here there was trash all over the place. No one would come here. Now, in the evenings, they have a huge amount of kids here.”

MORE LANGUAGE, MORE MONEY On the first day of a new semester, teacher and Post 14 Chaplain Dennis Janson instructs his seven students to copy down and learn rules he is writing in English on the blackboard. 

“Escribe más grande (write larger),” he encourages one student as overhead ceiling fans fail to dispel the heat. 

Twice a week for one hour, Janson and his wife split up the 15 boys who live at the Vida Nueva home and teach them English. The boys attend a nearby school for other classes but live at Vida Nueva because their parents are in jail or they have been abandoned for some other reason. The home is another of the post’s beneficiaries. In addition to Janson’s missionary work, the post has painted the walls and performed maintenance. 

“Excelente, chico, excelente!” Janson tells a boy as he walks around, giving feedback. “Perfecto!” 

Janson pauses to remind the students why learning basic English is important for them: “More language, more money.” His task is to arm the students with enough English so they can land good jobs in the tourism industry.

Now in his 12th year of missionary work in Mexico, Janson has a long list of success stories. As one illustration, he remembers hearing his name while shopping at a local grocery store. “I turned around and the former student – who was now an adult – was coming toward me speaking perfect English. What a blessing that was. She had a job in the tourist industry and was a functioning adult. What a blessing for a teacher and for her, too.”

8,000 SMILES Post 14 also works with other community organizations, including the Navy League, with which it has collaborated on a Toys for Tots program at Christmastime for eight years. 

During one distribution, at Jardín de Niños Clemente Orozco School in Colonia Coapinole, preschoolers knew special guests were coming and prepared a Christmas song to greet them. After the song, school director Rosalva Copado Delgadillo told the children that the guests brought presents. Applause, smiles and joy filled the courtyard.

“We’ve received 8,000 smiles in the past week,” Rike says. “This was one of the best years of fundraising.”

Overall, the two groups collected and distributed 8,000 balls, stuffed animals, trucks and dolls to low-income children. About 200 were distributed at the preschool.

“It’s very emotional because this is the first time the students have received toys, in many cases,” Delgadillo says. “Many of the parents are poor and lower-class. They work because it is important for them to show their kids, so they can be proud.”

As post members left the school, they promised to return. And they will.

Rike says he won’t turn his back on groups the post has helped. In fact, once the post starts working with an organization, nothing can stop the Legionnaires. Something always needs to be done: painting walls, retiling floors, updating equipment, providing toys and smiles. 

“If you’re in a position to help humanity, you do it,” Rike says. “That’s what we do at our post, because we love this community and the people.”