Our donors are thoughtful, kind, hard-working people from every walk of life. In Ana Hajduk’s case, it was a rough life indeed for a single mother of little means living in the woods of Patagonia.

       Then a chance came in the 1990s to come to the U.S. and work in a relative’s store. “Honestly, I came with $400 in my pocket and a daughter and two big suitcases, feeling rich,” Ana said. Although she had studied architecture in Argentina, “I could not find work as an architect in the U.S., but nor did I want to.”  

       Ana’s mother had been a gardener and landscape designer. Parque Eva Hajduk, a renowned urban space spanning six blocks in downtown Buenos Aires, was her creation and bears her name. Ana found a job as a full-time gardener for a private family and began taking horticulture and ecology classes. In time she built a landscape business, Singing Brook Gardens, and a reputation that drew large commissions.

       Her path crossed with HHP’s at the Hudson River Valley clinic where executive director Louise Lindenmeyr was a nurse practitioner, “I assumed Louise was with Doctors Without Borders, but when I visited the HHP website, I Iearned differently. She had built the clinic from the ground up, I was so impressed.”

       Hajduk used to give generously to political campaigns and a wide range of causes. “I decided to stop all of this and consolidate my donations in HHP,” she said.

       Today she donates 5 percent of her earnings to HHP by giving her clients a 5 percent discount on their projects. “I invite them to check out the website and explain how I got to know them and what they do. I don’t say ‘please donate.’  I don’t want to be so pushy. But they are very wealthy people, and I hope they will,” she said.