Local Temples Come Through For Lesly

This past January, smoke from the big wildfire burning in the Los Angeles area near Pasadena closed Shriners Children’s Southern California for three days. The fire also destroyed the home of Lesly, a Shriners Children’s Patient Ambassador. It was the kind of occasion where Shriners step up, and the local temples did.

Fire has impacted Lesly her entire life. Burned as an infant over almost 50% of her body, she came to Shriners Children’s when she was 6 years old to have treatments and surgical procedures to remedy some of her scarring and help her mobility.

Lesly, who is now 18, lives with her father, mother and three brothers. On January 8, her mother woke the family at 3 a.m. because the smoke from the Eaton Fire was so thick it made breathing difficult, and the neighborhood was frantic. The fire, which had been a good distance away the day before, was suddenly two houses away from the family's home.

The family fled with what little they could gather. At 5 a.m., they saw a video showing them that their house had been completely destroyed.

“We all started crying,” Lesly told a Spanish-language newspaper. “My parents worked very hard to gather everything we had. It was very sad to see my parents defeated, and I had never felt so much pain.”

When Connie Lujan, the manager of marketing and communications at Shriners Children’s Southern California, heard what happened to Lesly, she knew something had to be done.

“When Lesly texted me the news, I got very emotional,” said Lujan. “As I sat with the information, I thought to reach out to the Shriners for help. Bruce Ponoroff, Past Potentate of Al Malaikah, is the chair of one of our committees, and he took it upon himself to reach out to the other temples for help.”

After speaking with Lujan, Bruce called Al Malaikah Shriners Potentate Dario Gamboa and asked if the temple might be able to contribute something to the family. Then they called nearby El Bekal Shriners in Anaheim. Finally, they passed the fez at the meetings of the two units.

In less than a week, they raised $7,000. Lesly and her family were presented with a check in a ceremony that was widely covered by the Los Angeles media and television.

“I spoke to my wife in the car on the way home that afternoon after the check presentation, and I said, 'You know, there really is a heart out there for good news sometimes',” Bruce said.

While the family had trouble finding affordable housing at first, they now have an apartment in Claremont, about 30 miles from where they lived in Altadena, and Lesly is back in school. She intends to become a nurse.

“It is an act of love from the hospital that has taken care of me since I was little, and now they are taking care of not only me but the whole family,” Lesly said to the newspaper.