EDITORIAL:

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, is a little-known capital about as far from Orange County as you can get.

So what’s it got to do with Newport-Mesa, or, for that matter, the Daily Pilot?

First, the latter. Pilot photographer Kent Treptow made it his business to tell the story — in words and pictures — of abandoned children living in manholes to stay warm in the coldest capital in the world.

These children rummage in trash heaps for scraps of meat, face scorn and abuse from anyone who happens to see them on the streets and spend their nights drinking and cutting themselves.

We ran a two-part series and full multimedia package on this unspeakable tragedy — and Treptow’s attempts to help the children — last weekend (go to www.dailypilot.com to view the project).

Why?

Because one of our own had done a remarkable thing.

That is, the local angle to the story was, well, Treptow, and so we folded him into the narrative. After all, how many of us would spend a month in weather below -30 degrees, enduring the horrid sights and horrific smells of an underground city of children?

It’s fair to say not many. That one of our own did is notable.

Now, for the former (what’s it got to do with Newport-Mesa?). Many readers wrote and called asking how they could help.

And they can, even from thousands of miles away, by making donations to the Christina Noble Children’s Foundation via the foundation’s website at www.cncf.org.

The foundation is dedicated to helping children in need around the world, and has done a great deal to help the children in Ulaanbaatar.

You can be part of that effort.