María Rosa Leggol

Sister María Rosa Leggol, O.S.F., is a Honduran Franciscan Religious Sister who has been called the "Mother Teresa" of Honduras. In the 1960s, she organized a group of homes to care for the abandoned and deprived children of that nation, which became organized as the Sociedad Amigos de los Niños (SAN). Estimates of the number of the children helped through her labors since then are in the tens of thousands.

Early life

Leggol was born on the 21 November 1926 in Puerto Cortés, Honduras, the major port of Central America. She was the daughter of a native woman and a French Canadian father who abandoned them before María Rosa's first birthday. Eventually, Leggol was placed in an orphanage, where she grew up. At the age of six, she happened to encounter two School Sisters of St. Francis (abbreviated in the United States as S.S.S.F), the congregation which she would later join. Having never seen Religious Sisters before, she asked a local Catholic priest about the women. Once he had explained the idea of consecrated life to her, Leggol immediately determined that it was the life she wished to follow. Later, at the age of nine, Leggol prayed to the Blessed Virgin Mary to help her locate those Sisters so she could begin her new life. As she left the church, she spotted a train arriving with two of those very Sisters on board.

A Franciscan Sister

Leggol grew to know the School Sisters of St. Francis, who had come from Germany to serve in Honduras, and repeatedlysought to enter the congregation. She had completed only five years of formal education by the time she was of age, however, and the Sisters were hesitant to accept her. Finally, after much effort and perseverance, Leggol was accepted by the School Sisters in 1948 at the age of 21. They brought her to the United States to begin her formation in the novitiate of their American province, based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. By an interesting coincidence, she entered with an American, Diane Drufenbrock, who became a member of the Socialist Party USA in 1976, and ran as their candidate for Vice President of the United States in the 1980 presidential campaign. They and the rest of their class completed their year of formation and made their profession on the 13 June 1949.

Start

After her profession, Leggol was sent back to her homeland and assigned to work in a hospital in the capital, Tegucigalpa. There she was given the duty of serving as a supervisor on the night shift. She threw herself into her work and developed a reputation as a committed caregiver. As a former orphan, however, she felt a special solicitude for the poor children of the capital city, especially those whose parents had been jailed. The practice then was to throw whole families into prison together, leaving the children without any means of education and exposed to all manner of abuse.

By the early 1960s, Leggol had come to the conclusion that if any help was going to be given to these children, she would have to be the one to start it. While still working at night, the Sister began to use her daytime hours to seek locations for a home for the children. She learned of a neighborhood which had been slotted for low-income housing, and, without any money to her name, she signed up for 10 homes. Leggol obtained the permission of the Provincial Superior in Milwaukee to proceed with the project, but failed to advise the Mother Superior of her convent about it. Only when the developer called the convent, seeking the down payment for the houses, did the Superior learn about the plan, at which point she made it clear to Leggol that she would have to find the funding entirely on her own.

Through the tip of a grateful patient, she learned of grants being made available by President John F. Kennedy's Alliance for Progress, established to help the people of Latin America. There is a story in connection with this which is said to be typical of Leggol's strong will and determination in caring for the children. Needing the signature of one final businessman, Sister Maria Rosa went to his office, only to learn that he had just left to take a flight for a business trip. Rather than wait, she went to the airport and literally waved down the plane as it was making its way down the runway, demanding that they lower the staircase. Boarding the plane, she went straight to the businessman, who promptly signed the required document.

SAN

Leggol took in the first group of children in 1964. The Sociedad Amigos de los Niños (SAN) was founded by her in 1966 to provide a steady base for providing shelter and safety for Honduras’ vulnerable children, those who were neglected, abandoned, abused or orphaned in one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. Led by its founder, Sociedad’s homes for children and its programs provide a safe and loving haven for children.

This is currently accomplished through group homes housing 160 children, an agricultural training center for teenage boys, schools and a hospital, all scattered around the country.

Word spread quickly about SAN's children's homes, and Leggol was inundated with children she rescued from the prisons, orphans referred by social services, and even abandoned or street kids who walked for hours or days on the rumor of a meal and a bed from the "nun who helps children." The Austrian charity, S.O.S. Kinderdorff, asked Sister Maria Rosa to collaborate with them in building hundreds more children's homes in Honduras, as well as throughout Central and South America. She relied heavily upon their support of roughly $500,000 per year. Nevertheless, when she found their regulations too restrictive to caring for people, in 1989 she broke off the association and began to start fundraising on her own.

Supporters of SAN

The following charitable organizations are all supporters of SAN. They help by organizing brigades, setting up sponsorship for the children of the orphanage and also by providing donations to the organization.

Friends of Honduran Children:

Friends of Honduran Children, Inc.

Hope for Honduran Children

Honduran Children Rescues Fund

Virtu, Inc.

CampbellWebsterFoundation.com

Commitment

Another account is told which illustrates Leggol's willingness to go to the limit to care for others. During the devastation in Honduras caused by Hurricane Fifi in 1974, she and her staff were going house to house to help evacuate people from the flooding which killed up to 10,000 people in that nation. Leggol was the only one to hear a child's cries. She swam from one house to another until she found a baby sleeping on a mattress which was floating in the flood waters. She was able to swim to safety with the baby.

Leggol continues as the Director of the Society.

• Marquette University- Honoris Causa, an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in 2009 "for exemplifying the spirit of magis and being a woman for others," on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of her profession.
• The Good Samaritan Award in 1977, given by the National Catholic Development Conference in New York City to "individuals who have devoted themselves to good work through humanitarian love."
• University of Saint Francis Xavier of Antigonish, Canada - Honoris Causa
• A postage stamp was issued in her honor by the government of Honduras in recognition of her enormous efforts on behalf of the children.