BAND OF BROTHERS FOUNDATION: Comforting Children with Heart Conditions in CA

Band of Brothers Foundation supporter Dana Snyder is working with a group of local women who are personally “hand-making” comfort blankets for children’s hospitals in California.  So far, over 140 blankets have been delivered specifically to the children in the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit at the Children’s Hospital in Orange County (CHOC).

These “hand-made” comfort blankets help to provide children and their families with courage and emotional strength to endure their hospital stays.  Some of these children will endure open heart surgeries multiple times in the first years of their lives starting within just a few months of birth. These children and their families find strength in knowing that people in the local community care about them enough to personally “hand-make” blankets especially for them during their time of crisis and isolation.  Some of them will take these blankets home from the hospital as a source of strength to continue their battle with heart disease.

This project is near and dear to Dana and her husband Eric (Co-Founder of Band of Brothers Foundation) whose daughter passed away after spending 3 weeks in two separate children’s hospitals in California.  Their daughter Kapri received one of these comfort blankets from a wonderful lady named Cheryl King who has been the inspiration for this project.  Dana is involved in hand making these comfort blankets in her daughter Kapri’s honor.

This simple comfort blanket positively impacts children and their families in ways that are hard to explain…especially when their circumstances create a feeling of fear, uncertainty, and isolation.  This is a photo of a child who has endured two open heart surgeries.  He received one of our blankets and it has continued to comfort him and his family. The Band of Brothers Foundation continues with our mission of improving the lives of children and hopes to expand this blanket program to children’s hospitals throughout the United States and the world.

Thank you for your donations which have made this project possible and please know that 100% of your donations go to purchasing the fabric necessary to make the blankets.  As with all of the Band of Brothers projects, all of those involved in making the blankets are donating 100% of their time.

We want to say a special thank you to Laura Sherlock who is helping to make blankets for Children’s Hospital Orange County and to Kelli Pearce who supports this project within CHOC.

Troy Mikulka

Founder of BandofBrothersFoundation.org and IternetOnlineMarketing.com 

New Trajectory of Self Sustainability

During 2011 we moved the children that we support in Chiang Mai, Thailand to a safe home and started a self-sustainable child development program for them.

The Project

In 2010, Bobf was introduced to a children’s home in Northern Thailand that was in very poor shape. The children in the home ate only rice, did not go to school regularly, and were living in very muddy and dirty conditions.

The environment was damp with very little protection from rain and mosquitos. Sickness was spreading around the home which became dangerous since the children had very little medical care.

Bobf found a corporate partner and coordinated a fundraiser in both Asia and in the US to raise money for the home. The efforts paid off and Bobf raised $10,000 from 8 countries in South East Asia and $10,000 from the US. The funding significantly changed the trajectory of 35 young lives. The donation brought the children’s lives out of crisis mode, provided them important basic care and helped give them a quality stable rented home. We are now raising money for land to build them a permanent home.

Security Savings

Part of the money raised last July was used for the items reported below. Per Band of Brothers direction, the remainder is held in a bank account as savings and is budgeted and distributed on a monthly basis to ensure food will not run out and basic care can be provided for the children over the next 12 months.

• Regular Healthy Food: The first thing that was provided from your donations were 3 meals a day, which had protein, rice and vegetables. Last year the children mostly ate only rice and were undernourished.

• New Safe Home: The children moved from a dark, unsafe, unclean home, to the home you will see today. Your support gave the caregivers their first savings ever. This allowed them to secure a $166 dollar a month lease for the home campus and farmland. The landlord was told other People from all over the region were helping and decided to give the children a very low lease to help be part of the team to help these children.

• New Bathrooms and Shower: The new home has 6 enclosed bathrooms and 6 inside showers. The girls and boys rooms are inside concrete structures away from insects and out of the weather. The previous home was not waterproofed and was infested with bugs and mosquitos.

• Attracting Better Quality Caregivers: The operating managers of the home were able to attract more educated caregivers to work in the home because of its better conditions. This will help with the children’s education.

• Caregivers and Children Take Pride: The caregivers and children together took pride in working as a team with Networks 21. These efforts provided new equipment like beds, pillows, mats, Mosquito nets, shoe racks, and shelves to help organize the home and keep it as a good healthy place to live.

• Study Area: The children now have a study area and storage for schoolwork and new school supplies.

• New Transportation: The home now owns a truck that can fit all of the children for transportation to school, to help with farming and to get supplies, or to transport children for medical care.

• Music Equipment: Our success with donations triggered other smaller organizations to contribute school supplies additional musical equipment to home.

• Living Space for Children: The new home gives children their own space to sleep in and space for their own things. This allows the caretakers to teach children to be organized and disciplined when taking care of themselves, skills they will use later in life.

• Growing Vegetables: The children are growing vegetables that will be an important part of their diet for most of the year.

• Growing and Selling Rice: The donations paid for planting a season of premium rice. The premium rice was sold, and the proceeds were used to pay the cost of the rented rice land, for low quality rice for the entire year for the children to eat, and for the rice seed for the next season’s planting. Extra profit paid to plant corn and which will be harvested shortly.

• Fresh Water Collector: Last year the kids were forced to drink dirty dangerous water. Now they have water tank to capture fresh water instead of using river water and city water which contain dangerous bacteria. The kids helped plan and put together water collection system.

The Best News

Your donations have helped the kids so much, that all children are going to school now. They all received the required school uniforms and now are attending school. Last year some of the children were left behind because of limited school uniforms and lack of funds for school fees and lunches.

Troy Mikulka

Founder of BandofBrothersFoundation.org and IternetOnlineMarketing.com 

How internet donations helped change the life of a special girl

Last Year a 10 year old girl named Dar (Da) was abandoned in the streets of Thailand. Why was this very happy, warm, loving girl who had incredible energy left out on the street alone?

Dar, now 10, is now a happy cared for child. Here is her story, which is also the story of how your internet donations helped save her life.

Dar’s Story

Dar’s father died when she was 2 years old, before she was old enough to develop memories of him. She lived a normal but hard life with her single mother until she was 6. She became very sick and needed to see a doctor.

Her mother took her, but the doctor treated her with dirty needles. Soon after the visit, Dar developed nerve damage and a condition known as spasticity that paralyzed her left foot and hand. Dar’s condition was difficult for her mother to manage and Dar soon started missing school and falling behind her peers.

When Dar turned 10 years old her mother remarried and the new husband wanted nothing to with a disabled girl and so the mother abandoned Dar on the street.

She was found by our caretakers just days before our visit last year to Chiang Mai after being abandoned by her mother and step-father who moved back to Burma.

How you helped

Last year, your donations changed the trajectory of little Dar’s life. She entered the children’s home that we support and she was quickly treated with physical therapy. After almost a year at the home she is now able to use her hand and foot.

Your donations helped buy her shoes that provide extra support and comfort for her injured foot. Dar now goes to school regularly and will be tutored each day so she can catch up to students in her own age group.

She is participating in helping with the younger children and is very excited about helping with the farm. She has a safe happy home and she is able to play with the other children. While Dar may have a bumpy road to completely stabilize her physical and emotional well-being, our Self Sustainable Development Program will be there to help to coach her and empower her to take charge of her own success.

Troy Mikulka

Founder of BandofBrothersFoundation.org and IternetOnlineMarketing.com 

Kids are Toasting a Thank You to All of Us

Our donations provide new clothing and a celebration dinner for 30 children at Hai Chau orphanage. Only $300.

Remember just like our children small efforts show the children someone cares for them.

We plan on adding more of our reports about the children we are support on our blog.

Cheers,

Troy Mikulka

Founder of BandofBrothersFoundation.org and IternetOnlineMarketing.com