Operation Jackets-n-Hats

Exciting things are happening over at Orphans At Play. Terribly exciting.

At least they're exciting to a girl like me. A girl who has been to Russia. A girl who has seen the orphans who are left behind. A girl who has wanted to find a venue to help the orphans (without bringing every single one into her home...which in effect, would simply create another orphanage) for the past five years.

And she has found it.

That girl is me. As if you didn't know that already. ;)

Anyway. As you already know, I am the go-to person for the desitin program at Orphans at Play. If you go to that link you will find a tab that says Projects. Under Projects, you will find a link to Helping Hands. At the end of the Helping Hands description, you will find a link to my e-mail. Use that if you care to help out with the desitin (or any other brand). We are collecting that on a regular basis...some through monthly pledges, some through one time donations. Whichever way it comes to me it is greatly appreciated. So far we have sent 105 tubes of diaper rash cream to baby homes in Vladivostok, Russia. We have larger dreams, but are pleased with this for the first couple months up and running.

But all that has absolutely nothing to do with the title....Operation Jackets-n-Hats. If you did happen to go read the description of Helping Hands, you would have noticed that it mentioned clothes, along with rash ointment and diapers.

This 'operation' has everything to do with clothes and nothing to do with rash ointment and diapers.

Here's the deal. In the next month or so, we at Orphans at Play would like to collect as many jackets (or coats) and hats as we can to get to the orphanages in Vlad before the cold weather sets in. And trust me, it. is. cold.

Never in my life have I experienced such cold as I did when we were in Vlad this past winter. Never. We took warm clothes. Layers. Heavy wool coats for everyone, plus sweatshirts, scarves, and mittens/gloves. What I wasn't counting on was all the walking we did. It only took a few days of walking in windy 0* weather for us to decide that hats were necessary. I had taken hats for the children, though they weren't nearly heavy and warm enough. It's what we wear around here, where it does get cold, but over there? Their weather required way warmer hats than what we took with us. We soon found a hat booth in a Chinese market across from our motel in Nakhodka where we purchased four hats. The men thought they were warm enough without buying new hats, but they were caught stealing our scarves to wrap around their heads/necks on occasion.

The point of all that is to show just how cold it gets over there in the winter. If I remember correctly, we had only a couple days when the temp hit 10*F. And those days felt so warm that we didn't bundle up too much.

As cold as we were, we had the funds to just head into a market to buy new hats. We were blessed enough to bring heavy winter coats with us from home. We went to the baby store to purchase a new coat for Addie cause she 'ruined' her nice wool one while playing on the slide at the playground at the Vlad Inn. It really wasn't ruined. A trip to the dry cleaners once back home and it was as good as new again. But we bought her a new one so we could save ourselves the embarrassment of having a filthy little girl with us every time we went to town. Kind of pathetic, looking back now.

That was us.

Currently there are thousands of orphans in orphanages/baby homes who don't have the luxury of parents to race them to the store to purchase them a new coat. They don't have the blessing of a couple dollars so they can go to the market to buy a warmer hat. Instead, they layer on the few items that they do have and hope to stay warm.

And they do layer. We have never seen the children in the baby homes outside in the winter...I don't know if they get fresh air during that season or not. But we have seen them outside in September and June. Both those months...even in June when it was nearly 90*...the children were layered. When we picked up Addie in June, 2008 she was wearing a tank top, a t-shirt, tights, shirt, jumper, sweatshirt, hat, and sandals. She was sweating more than I have ever seen a child sweat. The culture is totally different.

Everyone bundles up like eskimos in the winter. I used to laugh about it, but after experiencing it for four weeks, the laugh was on me. If I had to walk to the train every day and then walk on to my destination after arriving at the correct stop, I'd bundle up a bit more around here.

This operation is to gather as many jackets and hats as we can in the next month. Any sizes will work. Perhaps the focus will be more on older children. Ages three to sixteen. Smaller sizes will work as well, but it's the older children who really need weather worthy clothes. The older children do get outside more. Some of them have to walk to school....which wouldn't be too far...but still. Their buildings are far from modern. Wind whistles in around the edges of the windows. While many rooms are too hot to even stand it, many other rooms are so cold you have to wear winter clothes just to try to keep warm. We experienced both on our trip this past February in the childrens hospital that Jack lived in.

So. Here's the deal. Over the next month or so, I'd like to see just how many 'Jackets-n-Hats' we can gather up to send over to the orphanages in Vlad. Buy them new. Go through your closets. As long as they are something that you wouldn't mind your children wearing...not ratty, not holey, not dirty...we will also take the gently used items. Any type jacket. Sweatshirts, heavy winter coats, spring jackets, etc. Any type hat. They have a thing about a child venturing out of doors without a hat on. Doesn't matter what the season is.

If you are interested in helping out, send me an e-mail at jody@orphansatplay.org. I'll let you know the closest point that you can take your donation. (So far only in Ohio or California...but hope to get some more drop-offs lined up.) Or if you'd rather donate money, send an e-mail. I'll get you information on how to get that to us as well. I would then take the money to buy as much as I could.

And by the way. I'd love to have the problem of wondering how in the world we're going to get all the 'Jackets-n-Hats' over there.

That'd be one of the better problems to have.

Thanks in advance!!!