More donations have arrived!

There is not much more satisfying than knowing that what you are doing is catching on and being embraced by others. A big thank you to Annemarie and Lola Maylene for your gifts toward the Celebration boxes. They are getting very full. I think it's time to pick up a few more boxes and fill them too.
Today the mailman came and much to my delight he brought a box. This box was full to the brim with gently used preemie and newborn sleepers and onesies. Which is always a blessing but the best and most amazing part is that this box was from another NICU graduate and his family. A NICU graduate who recieved one of the sleepers you all so generously donated. Thank you Jayden! We're so glad to meet you and we're excited that you are growing soo fast! Congratulations!

Celebration Box Update

A big thank you to Wendy, Amy, and Lori! Because of their generous donations and some things I've found cheap we are getting closer to having completed our boxes. These are the items we are still looking for:

"Cars" hats

toddler friendly animal toys or zoo themed items

fingernail polish

We also have a box of misc. party items and decorations, mixed with a grab bag of gifts for the kids. There is still time to get in on the giving. I'm waiting for a box from the mainland that has a bunch of Mary Kay samples for our "Day at the spa" box for older girls.

Here is an overview of the box themes we have right now.
>> for toddlers: it's a gender neutral Animal / Zoo box
>> For younger girls: A Princess box
>> for younger boys: A Cars box
>> for older girls: "a day at the spa" box
>> for older boys: A sports box

Please feel free to add things to any of the box ideas or like I said before if you want to do one of your own please do! I'm still waiting on that mainland box so like I said it might not be until closer to the end of the month that I drop it all off.

Easter Collection For Kapiolani

Thank you for visiting Danya's Gift site. We are once again collecting for a donation to the sick children and babies of Kapiolani Hospital. There are several ways to give.

First to the babies:
We are collecting Sleepers, Onesies, socks, and hats in the preemie or newborn size. There are also several patterns along the right side of the site if you want to sew something special. For more information click here.

Now for all the rest of the keiki:
The hospital tries to throw a party for birthdays and other celebratory moments like the last chemo treatment. Because it's hard to make sure that every child gets a personalized party we are putting together party boxes. To find out guidelines and needs click here.

We are grateful for every gift you are able to share with us. Sometime when your child is ill these are the little things that mean soo much.

Project Celebration Boxes!

As I have been reorganizing around the house I was trying to find a place to store the party decorations from Danya's birthday party. What do you do with these things?! When we went to drop off Danya's gift last fall, we talked to a patient rep who said that they often throw parties for the kids for their birthdays and for final Chemo and many other moments that deserve something special. So I started thinking and I wrote an email to the representative to find out what their needs were. She said that often they can't give the kids a real personalized party because they don't have a lot of options on hand. Upon reading her e-mail I really felt like God was confirming and encouraging me to mobilize the troops and do this thing. Our MOPS group started brainstorming ideas today. Our plan is to take plastic shoe boxes and put together themed party items so that when they need to throw a party they will take the items they need and then put the decorations and such back in and us it for the next one. We'll laminate banners and such so that they can be cleaned and used over and over again.

There are some No Nos to keep in mind.

NO LATEX

NOTHING EDIBLE

ALL NAPKINS AND PLATES MUST BE NEW AND SEALED (small plates only please)

Ideas of what to put in the boxes:

Bubbles

Party Blowers

Plastic Clapping hands

Banners

Cars

Hats

Paper Streamers

Crafty items

Table Cloth

Stickers

These are the themes we are going to start with, If you want to put together a whole box choose your own theme and go ahead!

* Princess Box

* Thomas

* Sesame Street

* Music Theme

* A day at the Spa

* Animals / Zoo Theme

* Super Heros (any and all)

* Cheetah Girls / Hannah Montana

The Snap-N-Style dolls I mentioned before will be going in with this gift. Can't wait to see what we can do when we work together!

Photos I promised

Okay so a long time ago I promised some of the photos from our drop off a few months ago. Well here they are. It was quite a morning, you can read more about it here. Thanks to Mark (at least I think that is how he spells it) who works over at Kapiolani for taking these photos.

Here we are outside of the NICU doors waiting for the head nurse to come and welcome us in. Danya was being a bit shy, but she really did do pretty well.

Here we are posing with a couple of the nurses in the NICU with all the stuff piled in the wagon.

Today I ran to Walmart during Danya's nap, and just because it had AC and I was alone (John was home) I decided to wonder through the clearance toys (Christmas leftovers). I spotted a purple box and I knew right away that it was the snap n style dolls that we love. If you remember we brought one to a very sick little girl on the day of our drop off. The hospital staff member who was with us loved it too because it could be cleaned up so easily. So naturally I needed to see how much they were clearanced for, because if you know Walmart clearance like I do they are very rarely really clearanced, usually like 20% but they were 70% off, only 5.98 a doll.

Since I didn't have Danya with and I could wait in lines I went to the customer service center to talk about if they could donate them, never hurts to ask right? Well the manager who handles that, as you can imagine is a M-F employee so I decided to just buy them and see if anyone else would like to join me in this gift to sick toddlers, and kids. As you can see we've added a donate button on the side of our blog, and that money will go directly to Danya's gift project, or if you can spare even a dollar and just mail it that is great too. The store only had 8 and I took them all. I can't wait to give this small gift to the kids at the hospital.

Hello!

We are so glad that you took the time to find out more about the gift we've given you. My daughter spent 12 days in the NICU when she was born. She was full term but had severe birth depression, her blood wouldn't clot, her kidneys quit, her liver gave up, she swelled up with fluids. It was a harrowing adventure, to read more about Danya's gift and to read the online journal I kept click here. I remember knowing that the day Danya got her first sleeper was the day she stepped onto the path toward full health. It was an amazing moment that I wanted to share with all of you. So on Danya's first birthday I commemorated it with a small donation, for her 2nd birthday it was more than 7 times the amount! Only God knows how big the next will become. If any of you would like to share your story to inspire others please contact me, using the link on the right. I would love to hear from you.

Bringing the Gift to the Hospital

Today was our drop off day!
We met up with our new hospital contact and walked to the NICU. Memories of going every day to visit Danya flooded back as we washed our hands. It was about 6 days ago that we mark 2 years since we brought her home. So today as we brought our gift I reflect on the journey we've taken to get here.

Over the past 3 months onesies, sleepers, and other newborn and preemie outfits have trickled in from around the country and state. At first my whole goal was more than last year, then God directed us to think bigger and we set our 150 goal that was broken! Yay we recieved 168, more items came in this week. Yesterday I washed and prepared everything even though it will all be washed again by the hospital, I wanted it all prepared.
The hardest part was sorting the sizes out again. Wait I take that back.
Folding socks is the hardest part. Those are some seriously small socks.
All the boxes and bags prepared with our new logo.
Tied up with a bow, so it looks more like a gift. I got a little wrapped up in the drop off so I failed to take a photo before we dropped off the NICU stuff, the hospital had a photographer with us for their newsletter so perhaps we can get a copy of the full wagon.
Here Danya is waiting until we got the name of a little girl who she could give her special toy to. This is the toy we brought along with the Elmo Balloon. The Patient services rep found us a little girl who is just a little younger than Danya and we gave her the doll. She lit up when she saw the gift and balloon. I am so glad that we were able to brighten her day. These are perfect for the hospital because they can be washed sooo easily.

It was a great morning. It struck me that parents could be checking this blog to find out more by this afternoon. I hope that they feel blessed by all that you all have done. Thank you, to all our generous donors.