Sara Delgado Languet, Ashley Zena and Carole Boudreau, from left, hold up Snoopy stuffed animals while June and her 18-month-old granddaughter Alzena, who did not provide their last names, read “A Charlie Brown Christmas” Monday at the Maine Children’s Home in Waterville. Languet has a special connection to the Children’s Home, Amy Calder writes. Anna Chadwick/Morning Sentinel

As Sara Delgado Languet likes to say, if we don’t tell our stories, they will be forgotten.

Sara, 55, of Belgrade, contacted me recently about a story involving the Maine Children’s Home in Waterville — a story she described as coming full circle.

Several days ago she asked her friend June to help her clean and organize a back room of her house. As they did so, they found 10 stuffed Snoopy animals, all new and packaged in plastic, as well as about 25 children’s books featuring Snoopy. Sara had purchased them on sale about five years ago around Christmastime to give to the nonprofit Maine Children’s Home in Waterville, but time got away and she never delivered them as planned.

“That organization has a special place in my heart,” Sara recalled telling June.

June said the Children’s Home is part of her family history. Her mother, Carole Boudreau of Belgrade, was given up at birth 77 years ago and taken to the Children’s Home, which then housed orphans. Alzena Burgess, a widow from Vassalboro who fostered some 100 children over the years, took baby Carole into her home.

June, now 56, of Rome, said she named her own daughter, Ashley Zene, after her grandmother, whose nickname was Zene. Ashley Zene, 34, of Belgrade, had a baby girl 1½ years ago and named her Alzena, after her great-grandmother, who died when Ashley was 6. Little Alzena, coincidentally, attends a daycare center located on the Children’s Home campus, though it is not a part of the nonprofit agency.

Sara’s husband, Bert, is a former member of the Children’s Home board of directors and their friends, Kenneth and Shirley Eskelund, who have since passed away, also were big supporters.

Delighted to discover they have a love for the Children’s Home in common, Sara and June decided to go there together recently to donate the Snoopy dogs and children’s books. As they were culling them out of Sara’s back room, June recalled a newspaper story from 1973 that featured a photo of her grandmother, Alzena Burgess, and two couples who were honored by the Children’s Home for fostering, between them, hundreds of orphaned children.

June, who did not provide a last name, holds a gift from June’s friend Sara Delgado Languet on Monday at the Maine’s Children Home in Waterville. The gift was a Morning Sentinel article with a photo of June’s grandmother, Alzena Burgess, at the Children’s Home. Anna Chadwick/Morning Sentinel

June gave Sarah a copy of the newspaper story and Sara, unbeknownst to June, enlarged two copies and framed them. She wrapped them in Christmas paper and planned to give one to June and and the other to the Children’s Home when they delivered the children’s gifts there.

I was invited to tag along and was asked not to use some last names of those involved to protect the identity of Alzena, the toddler.

It was quite the scene at the Children’s Home, as not only Sara and June were there, but also Carole, Ashley and Alzena. Anna Cooney, director of donor engagement for the Children’s Home, gratefully received the stuffed animals and books, and Sara presented her and June’s family the framed newspaper stories from 51 years ago.

“This has all been just fantastic,” an emotional Carole said of the gathering.

She and the others talked about Alzena Burgess, the woman who took her in so many years ago, and what an excellent mother she turned out to be.

“She was just wonderful,” Carole recalled. “She was a character. She was a jokester.”

Ashley was just 6 when her great-grandmother passed away in 1996 but remembers her well, she said. Alzena Burgess was responsible for keeping the family strong, which is one of the goals of the Maine Children’s Home — to help families become resilient and stable.

For Sara, who grew up in a tight-knit family in Puerto Rico and is a member of the Oakland-based Regional School Unit 18 board of directors, family is everything — and helping families and children to thrive is equally important. She recalled hearing a speech given a few years ago by then-Maine Attorney General Janet Mills at a Children’s Home fundraiser. It was before Mills became governor, and she spoke about how critical it is that children have shelter, clothing, food, security and nurturing caregivers, according to Sara. That speech was eye-opening for Sara, as Mills described many children who are at risk and the conditions they lived in.

“She lassooed me and brought me into the cause of the Maine Children’s Home,” she said. “I went home and woke up my kids and hugged them — because children are a gift.”

The Maine Children’s Home role has evolved over its 125 years, according to Cooney, the director of donor engagement. The organization no longer houses children but helps facilitate adoptions, educates pregnant and parenting teens, operates a family counseling center and provides many children with gifts through its Christmas-Winter Essentials Program.

Meeting four generations of June’s family and hearing their story was moving for Cooney, who said she wasn’t sure she could put into words just how special it was.

“It’s just a great reminder of everything we do,” she said.

Amy Calder has been a Morning Sentinel reporter 35 years. Her columns appear here Saturdays. She is the author of the book, “Comfort is an Old Barn,” a collection of her curated columns, published in 2023 by Islandport Press. She may be reached at acalder@centralmaine.com. For previous Reporting Aside columns, go to centralmaine.com.