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Dinny Bomberg was dealing with a considerable amount of grief when she visited Calca, Peru in 2003 – her grown daughter Becky Prichard had just died in a tragic drowning accident. Despite her grief, Dinny explored the area her daughter had grown to love. When she walked up to a school Becky often visited, she found a place that was deep in Becky’s heart, first meeting a young girl who was her godchild, then speaking to a teacher who missed Becky’s benevolent spirit.
“The teacher told me Becky would ride her bike to the school and was so appalled at the deplorable conditions, when she left she would always say she would be back to help,” Dinny says through tears, remembering one of the many times she heard from Becky’s friends in Calca. “So I said, ‘Well, now she’s back.’”
From that statement, Dinny created The Becky Fund, an organization created to aid the children of Peru.
Becky’s life was characterized by a free spirit. After graduating from St. Paul’s Central High School in Minneapolis and attending the University of Minneapolis, Becky and Dinny traveled around Latin America over four months before Becky settled for a time with her aunt in New Zealand. There she became certified as a teacher of English as a second language. After working for awhile as an advocate for migrant farm workers in Minnesota, Becky went to Albuquerque in her mid-20s to study Hispanic culture at the University of New Mexico.
In 2000, Dinny took her yearly volunteer vacation to build a house in Bolivia through Habitat for Humanity Global and suggested Becky meet her in Peru so they could travel to the ruins of Machu Picchu. Becky arrived in Cuzco to meet her mom as planned, but political turmoil kept Dinny stranded for nearly a week. Dinny’s absence allowed Becky to fall in love with the people and area and make plans to move to Peru.
In May 2002, Becky was remodeling an old building for a second-floor restaurant in Pisac and was engaged to Mendel Wilson Muñiz, a Peruvian whitewater guide. Her love for the Peruvian children was evident.
“There were a lot of really poor children that would hang around the town and they always wanted to beg in her restaurant,” Dinny says. “She told them they could ask for money, but they had to do something first. She would teach them a dance or a song, then wipe their faces, comb their hair and send them out to perform for the customers. They all loved it.”
Becky also got involved as the treasurer for the school where Mendel’s daughter attended, raising funds for basic supplies.
On June 9, 2003, when Becky was 30-years-old, she and Mendel were driving from Cuzco to Calca when their car blew a tire and slid into an eddy of the Urubamba River. Mendel was able to get out, but Becky’s foot was caught in her seat belt and she drowned.
The family Becky left behind, including her fiancé and Dinny, as well as her Father Michael Prichard, Brothers Mike and Alexander Prichard, Stepfather Frank Bomberg and Grandmother Jane Rogstad Hawkins, tried to deal with their grief in any way they could.
Dinny focused on helping the Peruvian children by setting up The Becky Fund and raising money to buy school supplies. Mike dealt with his grief by erecting a Dia de Los Muertos memorial for Becky at the Bare Hands Gallery in Birmingham where he lived with his wife Chris and children, Marley and Avery. As a freelance film and television producer, Mike devoted his life to positive change.
Four years after Becky’s death in 2007, Mike himself was remembered through the same memorial after he died in an accident at his home when he was 40-years-old.
The family was now remembering Mike, a man known for his healthy living, good cooking and green living.
Mike’s passion for living matched Becky’s, and Dinny wanted to remember that passion. In an attempt to continue Becky’s work in Peru, Dinny started a school program for the Peruvian mountain children where school supplies are scarce, even before Mike’s death. She now continues the effort in memory of both her children.
“We take school supplies to the real remote mountain villages,” Dinny says. “Some of these teachers walk an hour to four hours to get to the school and some stay the whole week because it is too far from their home. They are paid something like $200 a month, so to have to buy the school supplies from their own money is hard.”
Through The Becky Fund, Dinny provides supply boxes for the teachers and notebooks, pencils and bread for the school children. This year, three volunteers from Las Cruces joined Dinny, including Leonard Jimenez, Kelly Noel and Rachel Martinez.
“If we can encourage the teachers, hopefully they will stay. It is a very hard job for them,” she says.
Leonard has been to Peru with the group twice to help the children, school and communities, first hearing about it from Dinny.
“For the first few years Dinny talked about it, I thought it would be a good experience to learn about the culture,” Leonard says. “But, every time I go, it changes me. I see what it is like to give back and to appreciate even more what I have.”
Since beginning in 2003, the fund has provided school supplies to thousands of children in rural areas and teacher materials to nearly 100 schools. Volunteers like Leonard pay their own expenses for the trip to Peru and 100 percent of the money raised goes directly to the project. Because of travel restrictions, Dinny and her volunteers are unable to take too much with them (they take their own clothes, then leave them) so Dinny purchases nearly all the supplies in Peru when she arrives.
“I do it for both of them,” Dinny says of the impact she is making in remembrance of Becky and Mike. “You can do nothing or you can do something to honor them. I’m doing this to help people and keep my children’s memory alive.”
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