The teenager who puts a smile on the face of Romanian impoverished children

For Luca, a Romanian teenager currently living in the United States of America, to be a volunteer is part of his lifestyle. And because he will always see Romania as “home”, a significant part of his volunteering campaigns is targeting the impoverished children from his country of origin.

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Luca Georgescu is a teenager who moved from Romania to the United States few year ago. Even though he moved to America at a very young age, he still sees Romania as “home” and therefore he decided to express his love and gratitude for this country by putting in place a series of actions meant to increase the quality of life for as many children as possible. 

At seven years old, Luca relocated to America from his home in Bucharest, Romania, not speaking a word of English. He still has clear in mind an episode from the first day at school when the teacher asked him to draw the sun, but all he could answer with was “My name is Luca”. This inability to communicate was overwhelming, but Luca was determined to overcome this barrier and after months of hard work he was able to communicate.

Despite his visible progress, the feeling of being an outsider persisted and deeply impacted him. Every summer, his parents brought him back to Romania to maintain his cultural identity. But he realised soon that he began to feel like an outsider even in his hometown.”I was stuck between the two worlds”, declares Luca who now lives in Florida and studies at the Pine Crest School.

“I WANTED TO SHOW THEM THAT I CARE”

The memories he cherishes the most are from his vacations in Romania, but the time spent in his home country made him witness and realise that there is a significant number of children living in difficult conditions. 

“In Florida, I felt like I was living in a bubble, sheltered from all the issues that plague our world. Going back to Romania, I saw the world through a different lens”, Luca stated.

The teenager declares that part of his family tradition every year was visiting orphanages in rural Romania to donate clothes, food, and essential appliances like refrigerators and space heaters for the cold winters.

As he got older, these summer experiences had a strong impact on him, and he was more and more convinced that he can change the situation by helping these impoverished children. “Some kids did not have winter clothes, lived in dilapidated shelters, and lacked the necessary school utensils. They had been forgotten by the world. I wanted to show them that the impoverished situation of so many people in Romania was in my thoughts every day” is one of the statements made by Luca. 

LUCA AND MAYA, THE ANGELS OF IMPOVERISHED CHILDREN

It came naturally for Luca to enrol himself in volunteering campaigns to support the impoverished children. For a period of three years he was part of the Achieve Miami volunteering program and he was spending almost every Saturdays with kids – he taught them how to write, read or how to play basketball.  

His hard work and dedication didn’t go unnoticed and he soon received the offer to be part of the Students Council of Achieve Miami.  Although he loves offering support to the impoverished children from Florida, his main objective is to help the children from Romania being in a similar situation. 

Luca teamed up with Maya Cacenco who is also a Romanian who moved to the United States of America when she was 12 years old.  After their visit to Romania last year, the two established a non-profit organisation called RomCare.

While in Romania, they met with children of all ages and they learnt about the fragile situations that so many kids found themselves in and immediately started brainstorming for solutions. Back to America, they started identifying partners and raising money for their NGO.”Even though I live an ocean away, RomCare allows me to stay in touch with my culture and my people, giving back to the place that I still consider home”, says Luca.

THE SMILE PUT ON THE FACE OF CHILDREN FROM VALEA SCREZII

For the last few years, Luca and Maya organised a series of charitable events and they managed to raise 10.000 USD. With the money raised, the two decided to buy stationary and other essentials for the kids in the Romanian orphanages.

They planned to visit Romania during this summer, but due to the pandemic they were not able to travel. But they didn’t give up, they quickly adapted their plans to the current situation and performed a lot of online researches. This is how they discovered the place called Valea Screzii, “a place like no others”.

Valea Screzii soon became “home” for 164 abandoned children. Nicolae Tănase is the Romanian priest trying desperately to make all these kids happy every day, but was very hard without the so much needed funds. So was not hard for Luca and Maya to decide that all the money they raised should go to Valea Screzii. 

Maya finally succeeded to arrive in Romania in September this year, while Luca offer her massive support from the distance. They benefited from the support of a group of volunteers and this is how RomCare managed to buy bags full of essentials and back to school items. 

Luca was part of this campaign and joined in remotely via videocalls. He has fresh in his mind the true feeling of happiness shown by each of the children – he couldn’t see their smiles due to the protective masks they were wearing, but there as a genuine smile in their eyes.

TABLETS FOR THE IMPOVERISHED CHILDREN FROM FERENTARI

Valea Screzii was not the only campaign the two teenagers coordinated, they partnered with the “Save the Children” NGO and offered tablets to a number of children from Ferentari, which is one of the neighbourhoods of the capital city, Bucharest. Internet subscriptions were offered too, so the children were able to attend the online school classes during the Coronavirus pandemic. 

This type of initiatives are making Luca stand out from the crowd, show his gratitude and recognition and what is more important is that he is teaching us all a very important lesson – he is making the world a better place!