Introduction

The Story
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A Few Personal Stories
Francis
Faith
Anne
Silva

Children, Clowns, and Animals

That's me, Anne, on the right, with my friend Vivian Ebbs

By Anne Mejia

It was in my hometown of Toronto, Canada, that I first met members of the Foundation Faith in the 70's. In fact it was Cyrus, my future husband, who introduced me to the work they were doing in Toronto.

The church had established a coffee house and free store for young people to get help in the form of food, clothing, or just someone to talk with. And I was very drawn to taking part in the visits to mentally disabled children.

My fondest memories of this period were these visits with the kids. Often I would go on these visits with Cyrus, who is a musician, and we'd sing and play for kids with varying degrees of mental retardation or autism. The amazing thing was their response. They loved the music and the attention! I remember one child in particular who came up to the front of the room where we were singing. He looked up and asked if we would play "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head." We played the song and he joined right in. Afterwards one of the nurses came up to us in tears. She said that was the first time the little boy had spoken since coming to the hospital. They'd thought he might be deaf!

In 1980, when we moved to Colorado, it was my memory of those kids that led me to start a clown ministry. I created the character of Squeeky the Clown, and put together a rag-tag bunch of volunteer musicians, jugglers, and magicians. When our troupe arrived on the floor complete with balloons, toys, and tricks, everyone from the doctors and nurses to the patients were glad to see us.

We visited children who were sick with the most awful diseases, and undergoing treatments that were painful and frightening. Suddenly having a whole bunch of clowns arrive in the room was a great diversion! For a little while these kids could just be kids, not patients in the hospital.

While we were in Colorado, Cyrus and I were also following our other passion - rescuing unwanted pets and finding them new homes. We turned our home in Golden into a makeshift shelter for cats and dogs. Our local vet was very helpful with low-cost spay/neuter surgeries and we were able to find new and loving homes for hundreds of un-wanted pets.

In 1984 when we heard that some of our colleagues in other cities were pooling recourses to create a sanctuary for un-adoptable pets, we jumped at the chance to be a part of it. Cyrus would spend weeks at a time helping to build the first cat and dog homes at the new Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Southern Utah, while I stayed in Colorado to continue our work there.

But in 1991, the sanctuary was growing rapidly, and Cyrus and I wanted to be a full part of it. We bade farewell to the clown ministry, but I was soon to find that our work with the animals would blossom to the point where it could touch more children than I had ever imagined before!