1. Mirela spends most of the day in the stark squalor of the kindergarten playroom in the Suta Dragodana orphanage. Four of the 49 children here have parents - the rest are considered abandoned. Photography by Colin Mulvany
2. Anni Ryan Meyer squeezes her "lambchops," Lauren, Olivia and Johnnie at Spokane International Airport before leading a team of Spokane volunteers to help the children of Romania.
3. Barefoot orphans watch roof repairs in a yard littered with debris and glass. The building that houses the kindergarten and the older girls' dormitory was damaged in a freak storm June 26. "God sends you exactly when we needed help," says Pavel Stoicescu, director of the Special School for Girls.
4. Left: Orphans corner volunteer Marv Frey as he hands out candy during his first visit to Suta Dragodana. "I'd like to take 12 home, not for a week, for life," he says.
5. Above: Ionita screams with delight at the Americans' arrival. With few toys or visitors, the boy rushes to touch or hold a hand.
6. For many of the team members, the sight of sick and neglected children was harder than the physical labor of repairing windows and pipes. "I don't think you can go do this and not be changed," says Barb Pryde.
7. Below: Undernourished, ill and lacking the energy to cry, these orphans hunch outdoors on urine-soaked blankets. They huddle together and rock to comfort themselves.
8. Left: 25 children are squeezed into a small dormitory room for naps on filthy mattresses where they are confined for most of a summer afternoon.
9. Right: The orphans grow restless as nap time stretches toward evening. Their only escape from the tiny room is the view out the window.
10. Right: Gabriela and the other children eat their main meal at noon: soup, bread and scrambled eggs or corn mush.
11. Below: A single orphanage staff member tries to keep the peace among 25 hungry children clamoring for their lunch.
12. Above: In the frenzied chaos of the lunchroom, Marton wrests the last of the bread from a shrieking Mita. The food budgeted for orphans has doubled in the last three years, but children who are younger, smaller or sicker don't always get their share.
13. Left: A staff worker tries to reach a child scavenging crumbs from the floor after lunch.
14. Above: Survival of the fittest. In the brutal pecking order at the orphanage, a bigger, stronger child scoops a chewed banana out of the mouth of another boy and quickly eats it. At Suta Dragodana, the weakest child gets the peel.
15. In the schoolyard, an orphan vomits his lunch into a tin can. Between hunger and force of habit, the unsupervised child next to him drinks it.
16. Romanian worker Dinu Ioana tries to calm a screaming Florentina, who writhes from scabies. With no medicine, not even the treat of a piece of bread could comfort her.
17. Gheorghita wails in the play yard, but there is no guarantee anyone will pick him up.
18. Above: The orphans suffer many untreated skin disorders, from rashes to scabies. Most do not have shoes.
19. Left: Head lice infest many orphans. Despite shaving their hair to combat the parasite, the staff is powerless to stop the infestation among children who share beds and clothes.
20. Above: Two of the "Five Amigos," Nicu and Constantin, get a tweak and some attention from Marv Frey, who is removing putty from a broken window. The boys are ringleaders who tag behind the volunteers, eager for a smile or a piece of bubble gum.
21. Left: Spokane firefighter Ken Knutson replaces broken lead pipes and plumbing fixtures in the school bathrooms.
22. Below: Melody King takes time to play with Gabriela on a break from repairing windows. "They need something to play on, but more important they need someone to play with," says one Spokane volunteer.
23. Above: Spending the last two weeks of summer at a state-run camp, Nicu cartwheels through the forest. The 7-year-old boy has HIV-AIDS but is invigorated by the fresh air and open space far from the orphanage routine.
24. On a broken tricycle for two, Nicu and Ionita play with a kitten, Emil. The trike has no handlebars, and the children have no belongings, but share what they scavenge.
25. Anni Ryan Meyer dresses Sabina, 5, in clothes she brought from her daughter's dresser. The small child chooses a pair of red suede shoes, two sizes too large. Ryan Meyer knows that when she leaves, the orphanage staff may take them for their own children. She cannot stop it. But Thursday, she'll return to Romania a third time, with winter clothes for Sabina.
26. Sandu watches the Spokane volunteers leave for the day. With little stimulation, many orphans retreat into their own worlds.
