Ilce, Kate and Jennifer.  Three sisters ages 11, 10 and 8.  They lived with their mom, Leticia, in the New Columbia community in North Portland’s Portsmouth neighborhood and attended the Regence Boys & Girls Club after school.  Every day. 

Like clockwork.

It is their home away from home.  Staff members describe the girls as caring, bright and well-mannered.  Each one has been a youth-of-the-month.  When they arrived at the Club after school they phoned their mom to let her know they arrived safely.  And when they left to go home in the evening, they phoned her again … and even though their home is just across the street, Leticia would go out on the front porch and watch them walk safely home.  Every evening. 

Like clockwork.

Until last week.

Tragically, Leticia was killed in a car accident in the early hours of Thursday January 20th.  The circumstances of the accident are still under investigation, but what is known, is that the lives of these 3 girls was turned upside down.  Far more than they realize, and far more than we want them to.

There is very little consistency in the lives of low-income families.  Very little positive consistency.  But Leticia had done her best to create a home and routine for her daughters … to provide the best she could with what she had.  She made use of community services available to her and she enrolled her daughters in the after-school programs offered by the Boys & Girls Clubs of Portland.  It became the girls’ home away from home. 

To say the Boys & Girls Clubs are “the positive place for kids” is an understatement.  We all know what happens when our youth don’t have stability or structure in their lives.  When they have no place to go after school and no support system.  Wrong turns and bad choices are theirs for the taking.  And it happens too often.  But Leticia wanted to protect her daughters from taking those wrong turns.  She wanted to give them an outlet that supports healthy decisions, provides homework assistance, leadership and character development, physical recreation and … is a positive place for kids.

Today the community will gather at the Regence Boys & Girls Club to remember Leticia’s life … and more importantly, to embrace and support Ilce, Kate and Jennifer.  Three young girls with no other family in the area.  Three young girls whose mother left a life of extreme poverty in Mexico years ago to build a better life here … for herself and her family.  We will gather to let them know that the biggest gift their mom gave them was an extended family through the Boys & Girls Clubs.  And because of that … during this sad and uncertain time in their young lives …  they are not alone.

We, as a community, will be there for them.

Like clockwork.

http://bgcportland.org