By K.C. Myers, Cap Cod Times
PROVINCETOWN — Cao, who is about 5 years old, weighs just 20 pounds.
Katie Veatch of Provincetown holds Cao, an orphan in Vietnam she has been trying to help, in this photo from 2010. She is trying to raise money to provide him a walker and help the Que Huong Charity Center, where about 330 children live, in Saigon. Katie Veatch of Provincetown holds Cao, an orphan in Vietnam she has been trying to help, in this photo from 2010. She is trying to raise money to provide him a walker and help the Que Huong Charity Center, where about 330 children live, in Saigon. Photo from handout from Katie Veatch
Although the other children his age are starting school, he remains in diapers in the infants’ section of an orphanage outside Saigon in Vietnam, where a former Provincetown woman first met him and felt an instant connection.
Now that woman, Katie Veatch, hopes to raise money to return to Vietnam to take Cao a walker so he can join other children in school and other activities.
Veatch also wants to provide training and supplies to the caregivers and other children at the orphanage.
A silent auction fundraiser Saturday at the Kobalt Gallery will help send Veatch, 31, and her boyfriend, Tommy Czyoski, 27, to Vietnam to take equipment and nurturing massage skills to the Que Huong Charity Center, where about 330 children live.
“I just want to help in whatever way I can,” said Veatch, a massage therapist who recently moved from Provincetown to Boston to work in pediatric massage.
Veatch would adopt Cao and a few other orphans “in a heartbeat,” but adoptions between Vietnam and the United States are largely prohibited, she said.
Most children at this orphanage will stay there until they “age out” at 17, Veatch said.
Read the full story by K.C. Myers from Cap Cod Times.
