Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Bodega Bay, Children's Bell Tower



We visited the Children's Bell Tower in Bodega Bay early Monday morning after a quick breakfast at our hotel, the Bodega Bay Inn. It's a beautiful monument inspired by the 1994 shooting in Italy of seven-year-old Nicholas Green of Bodega Bay, and is dedicated to children everywhere.


Fifteen years ago, Nicholas was killed by highway robbers while vacationing in Italy with his family. His parents, Reg and Maggie Green, agreed to donate his organs and corneas, which went to seven Italians waiting for transplants, four of them teenagers. As a result, organ donations in Italy have since quadrupled and thousands of people have been saved.

The memorial is 18 feet high and holds 140 bells, almost all of them sent by Italians: school bells, church bells, ships' bells, mining bells, cow bells. Some bells had been in families for generations, others were made especially for this project. The largest bell is from the Marinelli foundry in Italy, which has been making bells for the papacy for 1,000 years. Nicholas' name and the names of the seven recipients are on it, and Pope John Paul II went to the foundry to bless it.

It was a very emotional experience to kickstart our vacation, but my parents had always wanted to see it, and were very grateful that the opportunity had finally come. We left after about 45 minutes at the memorial, and went to Dillon Beach for the remainder of the day.