First off, thank you, thank you for all of you who donated to our service project for the children's hospital. You made a really big difference! I truly appreciate each one of you! We had a few foreigners here in China who donated, but most of our $750 donations came from YOU!
Right before our deadline, many Chinese people came forward with used books and by the time we counted them all, we had over 900 books! (This is not a great picture, but sadly, this is all that I have of the books.)
After contacting the hospital as to whether or not they wanted more books or other things (I made several suggestions including bean bags or comfy chairs for the library, comfort items for patients, craft kits, money to support pet therapy etc.) they said they didn't want more books and decided that they wanted craft kits for the children in isolated wards in the hospital. So I spent all of your money on craft kits. The cost of crafts here is so cheap compared to the US so I was able to purchase SO many wonderful things that will bless the lives of the children.
The girls and I had lots of fun shopping on Taobao for supplies. We worked very hard to make sure we had items for a variety of interests, ages and things for both boys and girls equally. As they began to arrive, I was overwhelmed!
As it all arrived, I was overwhelmed by how much stuff we had and I realized that if it was going to be used, I needed to not only organize it, but separate things out into separate kits/bags that nurses could just hand children one kit without having to sort through the supplies to find the needed things. So the girls and I spent quite a bit of time sorting/organizing. One item will serve as the example: We bought some small character diamond paintings (2"-3") and they came all together in a big package. Greta counted out the diamonds from larger bags and put them into smaller bags for each sticker. She sorted these out for 56 stickers!! Bless her!
We also took all of the puzzle books, sticker books, water color books, coloring books to the local copy shop and had the bindings cut off so children can choose individual pages so the books could be utilized by several children. My Chinese teacher came over and helped me label the boxes and provide information on how to do the projects telling them where they could go to find video tutorials for things they may not know how to do. (All of the labeling on the boxes were her contributions, so the English is funny, but the Chinese is correct. She insisted on the English even though it won't be helpful to anyone at the hospital!)
I also made encouraging notes to be put inside the craft kits and books. They say: "You are so strong!" "You are loved!" "A good a attitude is the best medicine!" "I believe in you!"
You can see one of the notes in this puppet kit.
Supplies all organized
Here are group pictures of the types of supplies we got. We got several of each type. This is only a sample of what we got, it doesn't show anywhere close to the quantity.
Painting projects
Building projects
Pom pom art, foam art
Stickers/paper folding crafts
Sewing crafts
Perler beads
Fidget toys and foam model planes
Coloring supplies and books
Coloring projects
Sewing projects
Sewing projects
I also got about 36 boxes of slime (Greta's favorite when she was in the hospital last fall.) Those boxes of slime in the US are about $12-$15 a piece. I got them for $3 each. These were easily the most expensive items I purchased.
A few pictures from the hospital:
As per usual, in China, you can't just show up and deliver the supplies, you must formally present them and have some kind of hoopla. (Last time I donated some blankets I made I had to go to an hour long presentation, give a little speech and get my picture taken of me passing the blankets to a nurse on a silver platter....) I had asked that it be kept minimal and thankfully they did do that. I was only there for about 20 minutes and I posed for a few pictures and my Chinese teacher (who helped me get the whole project set up) explained how I made sure we had supplies for many interests, ages and genders and how we sorted things out into kits so it was usable. They were overwhelmed by all of it and really didn't know what to say. It was something they have never experienced before. According to my Chinese teacher "This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for the city of Changzhou!" That probably is not true, but it does demonstrate how little service is done and how much it is needed in this country.
This is the library in the hospital. Thankfully there are large windows in the library so it is well-lit. You can see from the other pictures, the rest of the hospital is not.
From what I saw, it is a pretty nice hospital. I was quite impressed with how they decorated it to make it fitting for children, and that for the most part it was clean and maintained. (Sadly those latter two things are one thing China struggles with.)
Once again, thank you all so much for your donations. As I took them over on Good Friday, I felt it was such a wonderful way to honor and commemorate Jesus Christ's Atonement. In a country where service is not given, together we set a good example, which is the most important sermon we can preach! Thank you wonderful friends!
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