Fmr. Pedro Pan Children Look To Educate Next Generation
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) -- Dozens of children and families are visiting a Miami-Dade camp that was part of the historic Pedro Pan operation involving the emigration thousands of Cuban children.
The operation involved the historic exodus of more than 14,000 Cuban children to the U.S. following Fidel Castro's Communist revolution.
More than 50 years later, local leaders along with a group, made up of former Pedro Pan children,are educating the community about a Miami-Dade camp site's role in the operation.
The event held at Camp Matecumbe, 13841 SW 120th Street, on Saturday started at 10:00 a.m. and ends at 2:00 p.m.
Visitors can take part in educational tours of the camp site as well as hear first hand accounts of people who lived in the camp.
"As the last intact Pedro Pan site, Camp Matecumbe is a hidden gem in the West End," said Miami-Dade County Commissioner Juan C. Zapata.
About 4,000 Cuban boys passed through Camp Matecumbe on their way to new lives in the U.S.
Operation Pedro Pan, conducted between 1960 to 1962, is the largest recorded emigration of unaccompanied minors in the Western Hemisphere.
It was conceived, with the help of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami, to fulfill the wishes of Cuban parents who wanted to save their children from living under Castro's new Communist dictatorship.
