Nadia's Heartfelt Gift
Recently, a very special friend of BARCS, Nadia S., visited us with a generous gift: hundreds of beautiful, handmade bow ties for our adoptable animals. Here’s her story...
Nadia came to the United States in 1999 when she was 15. She was adopted from an orphanage for “irrecuperables” in Romania by Lucy S. Lucy had heard about her future daughter while organizing a volunteer trip to the orphanage through Notre Dame Preparatory School. As a person with developmental disabilities, Nadia’s life in Romania was abhorrent; her future held minimal opportunities. But when she came to Maryland with her new mom, Nadia’s world opened up for the better.
As an adult, Nadia now lives and works at Gallagher Center, a service that cares for developmentally delayed adults through Catholic Charities. Nadia’s mom explains, “The profound abuse and neglect she experienced in Romania resulted in some disabilities that keep her from being able to live independently. So she is supported by staff in daily life and in her work. Her vocational helper is Norma T. Norma is also extremely artistically talented and they do projects all year long! In fact, Nadia just sold some art pieces she made with Norma at the Arc of Baltimore’s Annual Art Auction. Nadia also works part time as a receptionist at Gallgher’s main office.”
Nadia has two main passions: animals as well as fashion and art. Recently, Nadia saw a story on Facebook about a boy who made bow ties for shelter dogs. With the bow ties on, the animals could have cute pictures taken, helping them to get adopted faster. Nadia loved this idea, so she decided to do it.
Lucy says, “Anyone who knows Nadia knows that she adores dogs. When she lived with me, we had a yorkie, a chocolate lab and her little dog for 15 years was Misha, a black and white shi-poo.”
In the end, Nadia made 500 bow ties, and 350 of them were labelled, bagged and ready to go when she and Norma saw the WJZ story they did last week in the morning. They were so impressed, they decided to bring all that were ready to BARCS.
When Nadia came to visit BARCS, she was on cloud nine! Lucy explains, “Nadia loved meeting all of the animals and interacting with them. She is a natural with any dog. And we really appreciated everything that the staff did to help us get the bow ties on the dogs and cats!”
One really special moment involved Kevin, the rambunctious meatball of a dog who Nadia met. Kevin just wanted to play as we tried to get a tie on him! Once we got a photo, he was taken back out of the conference to go back to his kennel. As he left the room, Kevin, who was a stray, saw his family in the hallway, and they were very joyfully reunited!
Thank you, Nadia, for generously making hundreds of beautiful bow ties for our adoptable animals! Your hard will help Baltimore’s animals find homes this holiday season.
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