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November, 2004 | |
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Dear Sponsors and Jiangxi Families, It's been an exciting year for our Altrusa/Amity and Altrusa/ Holt projects. We have more children sponsored in foster care and school than ever before and more Hugging Grannies in the orphanages. Additional orphanages have been added to our program and new projects have been started. Of course with this expansion we continue to need sponsors so I hope there will be a child or project that catches your interest. In particular we need foster care sponsors and Granny sponsors. I don’t want you to get lost in all the news and miss what you’re most interested in so here’s a list of what follows (in order presented):
Recently we were able to place some new children in foster care - including six children from the Hengfeng orphanage and five from the Yingtan Orphanage. We are also starting a foster care sponsorship program at the Ji'an orphanage, intially with two children but hopefully we can soon add some more. We now have 292 children that we are sponsoring in foster care! It is so exciting to see these children find a loving home, especially since many of them are "special needs" children whose chance of being adopted is low. But due to this large number of children under our sponsorship we do have children that need a sponsor for their foster care as their previous sponsor is no longer able to support them. Foster care support is $396 per year ($33 per month) per child in most cases but a few of the special needs children in Nanchang require $588 per year ($49 per month). Some of the children needing sponsors are: A boy at the Shangrao orphanage born December 2002 that has an ear and mouth deformity. A boy at the Shangrao orphanage born August 1999 that has cerebral palsy. A boy from the Xinyu orphanage born March 8 and has congenital hydrocephalus. A boy from Yichun born January 2003, who is the youngest of the nine children placed into foster care under our sponsorship from Yichun. He has cerebral palsy and his name translates to "to build/construct teeth/ivory". A girl from the Nanchang orphanage born July 1994 who has Hepatitis B and mental retardation. The cost is $468 per year ($39 per month) for her. A girl from the Nanchang orphanage born August 1995 who has Hepatitis B - She is sponsored through Holt instead of Amity and since we’re also covering her schooling the cost for her support is $39 per month instead of $31 per month. Holt does send reports quarterly instead of twice a year and they do include a bit more info than Amity’s reports do. Amity sponsors receive a brief report and a photo twice a year. We recently received the foster reports and they have already been mailed out to current sponsors. If yours hasn't arrived yet please let me or your foster coordinator know. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SPONSOR ONE OF THESE CHILDREN PLEASE LET ME KNOW! For just $145 per year you can sponsor schooling for one of the orphanage children. We have quite a few new children this year in our school sponsorship program and some new orphanages (Fenyi, Fengcheng and Yongxiu) have joined our program. So new sponsors are definitely needed. Some new children have been added to the school program from our continuing orphanages, especially at Fuzhou (Linchuan) and Hengfeng. We also have deaf children from Ganzhou and Xinyu needing to attend a boarding school at a school for the deaf which costs a bit more than the usual tuition ($207 to $570 per year). Most school sponsorships for preschool through middle school are $145 per year (we’ve averaged the costs for the children in these age ranges). The orphanages most in need of some additional sponsors include Ganzhou, Gao’an, Nanchang , Shangrao and Xinyu. If you're interested in sponsoring a child please let Peggy know at peggy@gurrad.com. For those of you who plan to continue sponsoring your schoolchild from last year we do need to receive donations as soon as possible. So far we've only received the support for about 48 of the 187 children we've pledged to sponsor this year. If your sponsored child is in preschool through middle school please send a donation of $145 to cover the costs for this school year. If your child is older than this and you haven't received an e-mail about the costs for this year then please e-mail Peggy at peggy@gurrad.com. She is organizing the school sponsorships for me. Unfortunately we haven't received our end of the year school reports yet. Amity is understaffed to keep their administration fee low, it's only 7% and the rest of your donation goes directly to the orphanages. But this means that the Amity staff is not always able to get the reports done as quickly as we would like. I'm sorry for this delay but I hope you will understand. When I get frustrated with this I just remember that most of my money is going directly to help the children and that’s what really counts. The most recent e-mail from Amity indicates that the reports are probably already in the mail. Once they arrive we'll get them mailed to sponsors as quickly as we can. We have a new "Donate While You Shop" partner. Buy a "Same/Same" CD of adoption songs and $5 will be donated to Altrusa Foundation. When you order at www.samesamecd.com use the promotion code Donate1 - there will be an acknowledgement of the donation on your receipt/confirmation. The Same/Same CD has adoption related songs written and song by adoptive father Chuck Kent. A recent review in Adoptive Families Magazine says “….(the) catchy tunes and clever lyrics put to music how children think and feel about adoption….For kids who don’t like to talk about adoption, this CD may help to get those crucial conversations started naturally.” Another "Donate While You Shop" opportunity for the holiday season is Mary Kay "Gift Sets". These come with a gift bag and card. The Lip and Nail Sets are $18 and $5 of this will be donated to our Hugging Grannies. For all other purchases 25% will be donated. The Gift Sets can be found at www.marykay.com/gurrad - just click on "What's New" and then "New Products". Several of the other new limited-edition products would make fun gifts as well. There are some new shades of nail colors under “What’s New” then “Nice Nails” and under “Wish Fulfillment” some suggestions for matching products that could be used to make a gift set. When you place your order just put “Donate to Grannies” in the comment section. If you do any holiday shopping at Amazon (or at any time of the year), please use our link at www.altrusa.ws and 5% of your purchase price will go to the orphans in China! Just go to www.altrusa.ws and click the "Donate While you Shop" link, then click the Amazon icon and the rest will be automatic - 5% of the price of anything you buy during that session will be sent to the orphans through Amity/Altrusa. It's free, painless, and a big help. We have a few Hugging Grannies who have lost their sponsor so we're looking for new support for them. These women are wonderful and can impact the lives of several children. Monday through Friday they come to the orphanages to spend time with the babies and children. Many of them are retired professionals and they help the children in many ways, including giving the extra love and attention that overworked orphanage staff just doesn’t have the time for. Some of the Grannies needing a sponsor include: Nanchang Granny – a teacher working with the handicapped children Ganzhou Granny – gives extra attention to toddlers living at the orphanage Guixi Granny – a retired teacher working in the infant room and also supervises the foster care Jiujiang granny – spends time with the handicapped children and helps them with rehab exercises Shangrao granny – works with the handicapped children There will also be some others needing a new sponsor in the next few months. The stipend for the Grannies is $544 per year but donations of any amount are much appreciated. Donations should be made out to Altrusa Foundation and for Grannies and other projects (except school support and some of the foster care) the donation should be mailed to: Altrusa
Foundation Or, if you'd like to pay with your credit card you can donate online at www.networkforgood.org (a 3% fee is charged for this so if you could add that amount it would help us out). Search for Altrusa International and then choose the one in Longview,WA with the above address. Gift cards are available and a donation to the Hugging Grannies or other project in the name of a friend or family member would be a wonderful holiday gift. Just include a note with your donation (or e-mail me the information) that says who and where the gift card should go. Or we can mail you the gift card so that you can give it personally to the person you're honoring. The new “Love of the Heart” group home building in Nanchang is completed and final work on the interior is being done. We have sent funds for the following items for each of the six apartments: solar water heating systems, dish sterilizers, refrigerators , dining ware and cookware. Items that are still needed include sofas, bed, bedding, kitchen tables and chairs, closets and drawers. Many couples applied for the positions of house parents and six where chosen. They have made a commitment to remain with their six children for several years and have undergone two different training sessions. Please let me know if you would like to help furnish the building or sponsor one of these children. They hope to have each couple’s first 3 or 4 children move in during November. Once they’ve settled in the remaining children will join their families. Amity staff are visiting in Jiangxi province this week and the orphanages they will be going to are Jiujiang, Ruijin, Ganzhou and Ji’an. Once they send their trip report I’ll try to get this up on the website promptly. On a somewhat unrelated topic, I have been contacted by a Chinese physician who is practicing in New York but is originally from Jiujiang in Jiangxi province. She would like to write a book in Chinese about adoption from China for people in China. She feels that many of them would like to learn more about the lives of our adopted girls but that very little information is available to them. She is looking for families that would like to share their adoption story. Feel free to e-mail her at songgarden133@yahoo.com if you’re interested or I would be happy to forward her e-mails on to you. You can find some information about her at http://saratogacare.org/ under “Find a physician” and then the specialty of “Inpatient Medicine”. An adoptive mom that lives in the town where this woman practices e-mailed me this, “My 2.5 year old Jiangxi girl and I attend a Chinese Language playgroup on Saturday mornings in Saratoga Springs. Dr. Wang met with the families in our group and is genuine in wanting to publish this book. The purpose is to bridge the two cultures and promote the "beautiful stories" of our girls and families to "ordinary Chinese citizens.” Thank you again to each of you that has donated and made it possible to provide this assistance to the children of Jiangxi that have not yet found families of their own. In an upcoming newsletter I’m hoping I can highlight a few children whose lives have been impacted so you can get a good sense of what a difference your donation can make in their lives. It is very exciting and quite touching. Thank you! With much appreciation, Peggy Gurrad
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