Teaching good things...

At the end of school in June, Evan's teacher was trying to get the kids to do service projects - figuring out something that they could do that would teach the kids compassion and how good it feels to help others. Lots of kids send things home asking the families to donate cans, school supplies, etc. We talked to Evan and decided that he could send home a letter asking for monetary donations for cleft bottles. With Jen going to China to adopt Katie, who is cleft affected, we thought it would be a nice way for him to "honor" his cousin and get cleft bottles to the babies who so desperately need them. We made up a flyer, and Evan brought them to every classroom in his school. His teacher reported that he did a great job and was very polite to the teachers, asking that they please give the flyers out. The school community was awesome - we had one family alone give us a check for $50! Kids sent in envelopes with money from their pggy banks, which was so touching. My dad also brought the flyer into work and he raised quite a bit of money as well. All together, Evan raised about $400 for cleft bottles. We went online and were able to order 216 cleft palate bottles! How great is that!

Our dear friend Vicki just adopted her newest son, Noah. She willingly brought along 10 smaller boxes of bottles to the Sichuan Province, where her son is from. Sichuan is the province where the earthquake hit and it was so amazing knowing that the bottles were going to go someplace where they were really needed. The children from the orphanage in Chengdu City had been up until recently, been living in tents. We knew the bottles would be helpful. Thank you Vicki for bringing them for us. When Vicki sent me the picture of her giving the director of the orphanage of the bottles, he saw himself on the picture on one of the boxes and his eyes got real big. He thought that was really cool, and he could see that the bottles actually got to China. It's bizarre, because just about everything you see is stamped "Made in China" - but cleft palate bottles are not available in China. And virtually every orphanage has cleft lip/palate affected children.


My mom is bringing 10 more small boxes - 60 more bottles, to Guandong Province, and we have other friends with Families with Children from China that will be traveling, and we'll ask them to bring some bottles too.

Blowing kisses in the wind to all those little babies, and we hope that your bellies feel nice and full soon.

Good job, Evan!