Friday, December 5, 2008

TGIF! Time is really flying by, with lots to do before our big toy day! We did receive word about the family we are adopting. The patient is a teenage girl, with a single mom. We can't wait to go shopping for some fun things for them.

We also had another family that reads Hannah's blog request a family to adopt. Isn't that wonderful? They are adopting a little boy, 6 years old with leukemia, also with a single mom.

This is all so exciting. We have been collecting toys through our toy drive also, for the kids on the oncology floor. We hope to visit them the week of December 15th. We will know the exact date soon.

Hannah really gets a kick out of checking the toy box every day for new toys. She goes through each of them, anazlying them. She wants to keep many of them too... such great toys! Thank you all so much for all of the toy donations and monetary donations too. Your gifts will help us make so many other kids happy at Christmas time. We love you!

Kim


Toy Drive

This year the girls want to do two things to help kids with cancer from Hannah's Cans for Cancer program. First, we are adopting an oncology family this year from clinic. We do know the patient with cancer is a pre-teen girl, but we are awaiting the rest of the details on the family to be able to purchase gifts for them. We are so excited about this, and hope to make Christmas very special for a family struggling with cancer who may need some extra help this year.

The other thing the girls want to do is visit the 4th floor pediatric oncology floor at Schneider Children's hospital, where Hannah spent her time when inpatient. The plan is that Dave will dress up as Santa, I will be Mrs. Clause, and they will both be elves. Yes, you can all stop laughing now, it should be quite amusing. We will have boy and girl gifts for all ages and will travel room to room handing out gifts and candy to all the kids. We plan on leaving toys for the bone and stem cell unit children also, but we can't enter that area, as it is strictly quarantined.

We had to get special permission from the hospital to be able to go up on the 4th floor. Usually, they do not allow donors to directly give the gifts, due to hospital and state regulations. Also, no child under 12 years old is typically allowed on the floor if they are not a patient or a sibling (I never knew this.) Since both of the girls are under age 12, they will not be allowed to actually enter the rooms, but the children can come out to the hall or the doorway. If that isn't possible, their parent or a Childlife helper can deliver the gifts.

We are very excited! There is a lot of work to do though. As you're probably thinking...these are very ambitious projects. I'm thinking the same thing..but I know we'll pull it off. The thought of bringing these kids a little bit of happiness at Christmas will keep us on track and rolling! We are in need of toys, lots of toys and FAST! We will be delivering these toys to the hospital and the family sometime during the week before Christmas, which doesn't leave us a lot of time. We need boy and girl toys, of all ages, but mostly in the age range 6 years old and above. There are kids of all ages on the oncology floor, but not that many very young children. The children were most often around Hannah's age or older. If you are out and about shopping for Christmas, please help us help these kids, many of whom will be in the hospital on Christmas, instead of at home with their family, as they should be. It's difficult to be in the hospital, and especially difficult to be in the hospital on a holiday.


Please consider donating to Hannah's Cans for Cancer Toy Drive this year. If you do not have time to purchase a gift, and could drop off or send a donation instead, that would be appreciated also and will go directly to purchasing gifts for the children. Hannah designed a sign for the bin that is now out in our driveway. Please drop off any unwrapped gifts to our Toy Drive box at our home, 1556 Grand Ave, Mattituck. If you would like us to come pick up at your house, we would be happy to, just send me an email or call (information on the side bar on the left of this page.)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hannah,
What you are doing for all those kids in the hospital is AMAZING! You are an awesome kid MIss Hannah! Keep up the good work. :0)
Bonnie and Gina
www.caringbridge.org/visit/ginamulieri