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# Santa Monicans deliver their charity globally
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/santa-monicans-deliver-their-charity-globally/
- Published: 2006-08-02T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T19:07:31.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Community, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By Daily Press staff*

AFRICA — A group of Santa Monicans will be coming home this week from Kenya.

The 11-member team from St. Monica Catholic Parish arrived in Nairobi, Kenya, on July 24 for a 10-day aid and fact-finding mission at their sister parish, Holy Cross Church. The trip includes following up on current projects, observing how Holy Cross has used the funding from St. Monica, what the current needs of the community are, and what projects may be needed in the future.

Holy Cross is located in the extremely poor and AIDS-devastated suburb of Dandora. Led by Pastor Msgr. Lloyd Torgerson, the missionaries are staying in the Carmelite retreat house in a wealthy suburb of Karen, which requires a daily one-hour commute to Dandora.

The St. Monica Holy Cross Africa Ministry is an expression of one of St. Monica’s five-year parish-wide goals to provide material assistance to the poor and form partnerships with local, archdiocesan and global groups to serve those in need.

With 40 percent of residents unemployed, roadside vendors sell everything from toothbrushes to live chickens to sofas that are upholstered. Dandora residents live in shacks without water, electricity or toilets. AIDS is widely prevalent in Dandora, where it is common for women to turn to prostitution to survive.

Africa Ministry team member Kitty Felde, a correspondent for National Public Radio, has been cataloguing the trip in daily audio reports, which are available at http://www.stmonica.net.

The team from St. Monica includes Dr. Amy Nguyen, who has been treating patients at the Volunteer Counseling and Testing (VCT) HIV/AIDS Clinic and the Brother Andre Dispensery Clinic which has no regular doctor — just nurses.

“The clinic began in a 20-foot container on the grounds of the Holy Cross, but the need quickly outgrew the space,” Felde reported. “They moved down the street to a building which originally housed the rectory, but now houses a lab, a pharmacy, a counseling center — a really comprehensive AIDS Care Clinic. Back at Holy Cross, dozens and dozens of AIDS patients lined up patiently for a five-pound sack of cornmeal.”

The clinic was started as a government-funded facility, but St. Monica helped acquire the larger building, which is down the street and around the corner from Holy Cross. On this trip, the St. Monica team succeeded in fixing the medical equipment at the AIDS clinic.

“The clinic uses the buddy system and a team of volunteers to check up on patients, to track them down if they don’t show up for treatment,” Felde said, adding that 95 percent of AIDS patients complete their first year of treatment.

To boost patients’ morale, the AIDS clinic celebrated with 60 patients who have stayed on their medicine for one year. They held a graduation party, including certificates of completion and a cake.

The AIDS clinic has many safeguards to ensure that their AIDS patients are supported medically and emotionally.

St. Monica’s partnership with Holy Cross extends far beyond AIDS medical treatment. Ashley Harrison, an eighth-grade teacher at St. Monica Elementary School, is assisting at the 380-student St. James Primary School in Dandora, one of several Holy Cross facilities that are aided through contributions from St. Monica parishioners. Contributions fund 13 scholarship students at St. James, among other things.

Team member Ed Archer, director of liturgy and music at St. Monica, is studying and participating in the choir at Holy Cross. Team members Katherine and Steve Casey are checking out a new fresh water well that was bored on the campus of Holy Cross Parish this past spring. Co-chairs Nancy Dewey and Trevor Rodrigues share the responsibility for ensuring the mission's accountability, manage the 3-year-old St. Monica-Holy Cross relationship and help to set strategy on future operations.

One woman who has been HIV positive since 1992 had a message for the parishioners of St. Monica: “We are people rejected and neglected, even by our families. We are receiving blessings from you. You cry so much about us.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 2, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/080206.pdf?ref=smdp.com)