Tillie Sodano is 79 years old, mother of eight children, grandmother to 21 and great grandmother to seven. She returned from a week of volunteering/working with the poor in the poverty-stricken Central American country of El Salvador from January 10 to January 17, 2015.
The endlessly energetic Sodano of Longswamp was in El Salvador with the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She has worked with Sr. Gloria Petrone of the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus for a decade. She grew up in Philadelphia and was introduced to Sr. Gloria by a friend, Joan Lambert. “She introduced me to Sr. Gloria and volunteering with the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart,” Sodano recalls. Lambert helps the Handmaids by doing clerical work.
Sodano grew up in the Brewerytown section of Philadelphia but would venture to the Landis Store area in the summer where her father had built a summer home, a retirement home. This connection made her decide to retire to the area. After raising her children and working in the accounting field, she moved to the retirement home she built in Longswamp.
Her parents set the example of charity for her. “My parents were very giving. During the war years they fed beggars. I was always interested in helping the poor,” she says. Her concern and compassion inspired Sodano to say yes when Lambert invited her to join her on a missionary trip to El Salvador in 2005. And she hasn’t stopped helping ever since. “I love helping people. I will stop volunteering when I’m dead,” she declares. Plus, she has made it a family affair.
Her eight children participate in her El Salvador work when possible; when they aren’t busy with their own volunteer work.
Her son Anthony is a pilot, a captain with Spirit Airlines, who gets care packages to Miami that are then shipped by boat to Sr. Gloria. Another son, Thomas, a priest in the Philadelphia Diocese, has traveled to El Salvador twice with his mother. On one trip he literally gave a poor man the shirt off his back and returned wearing his clerics but not the tee shirt he originally had on underneath. On most of her trips, Sodano will leave most items with the children and elderly and return with nearly empty suitcases.
Sodano would like to go every year, but each volunteer has to pay their own travel expenses. And despite the turmoil in El Salvador, she has never felt threatened.
“We’ve never had an incident but heavily armed guards are everywhere. We don’t talk politics, we stay in our group, we’re locked in at night by a gate at the courtyard,” she says.
The Handmaids focus on the young and the old, the two age groups that can’t help themselves.
During her most recent trip, Sodano painted a computer room at the school which Sr. Gloria built with many volunteers. She told the story of how Sr. Gloria recently purchased a tract of land which she negotiated for over three years and managed to get the price reduced by 50%. Sodano praises her, saying, “She is a very good steward.” Sr. Gloria eventually hopes to put a senior center on the newly acquired property.
Sodano describes the people she helps as the poorest of the poor where electric and running water are the exception; they cook outside, carry water for a mile even though it is not potable. She describes the El Salvadorans as a grateful, happy people. She tells stories of how children consider toothbrushes and soap as treasures and look to share all the good things they gain with other children, even splitting a cookie so friends get a taste. It is these reasons that she continues to gather things Sr. Gloria can use and talk about all the good things that Sr. Gloria has accomplished.
Sodano says that as little as $60 will sponsor a child to go to school for a year. And sponsorship is critical for each and every student each and every year. Without the annual sponsorship, a child doesn’t get an education or the education doesn’t continue. “I believe we are making a difference in giving people hope for a brighter future,” she says.
More about Sr. Gloria and her efforts can be found at <www.projectfiat.org>.
Sodano’s volunteering includes local efforts such as collecting all types of clothing, house items, toys, etc., for the poor in the Kensington area of Philadelphia. She belongs to Most Blessed Sacrament’s rosary group, which makes rosaries, and volunteers at the parish’s fish fry, soup kitchen and carnival. She is a member of the Topton Senior group. She cleans at her priest son’s parish in Collingdale and volunteers at some of their events.
Even at almost 80 years of age, having accomplished so much for those with so little, Sodano looks forward to doing even more with the enthusiasm and energy of someone half her age and in prime health.
