Zero the zeros !!!

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Chipping away !!

I have issued a challenge - I will match $ for $ every donation that gets a child up to $20. For example - if you donate $10 to a child, I will donate $10 to that same child, or another child with less than $20. If you donate $50 - unfortunately, I can only match the amount that got them up to $20. I will keep matching until every child listed below is up to $20. Please do what you can !

This was where we stand as of about 6.30pm this evening. There are now only 24 children with less than $20 - and that will change when I get my matching donations in - 17 children have already jumped over the $20 wall this evening, and 2 are a few dollars closer !!!

UPDATE - I will make my matching donations tomorrow (Good Friday). Things are going so well, I'm having a hard time keeping up :):) I will figure out in the morning who still needs $$, and then post who my matching donations have gone to. IF, by some miracle, all (or most of) the kids have made it to $20 - I will try and split my donations as fairly as possible. Thank you to everyone who has donated and/or shared !

Celeste $6

Mark $6

Yelena $6

Taylor $6

Christian $6

David $6

Drew $6

Andrew $6

Ana $6

Eric $6

Andrey $6

Yuri $6

Ross $6

Donald $6

Dmitri $6 -

BOY, born July 5, 2003

Diagnosis: vegetative-vascular dystonia, scoliosis

Parker $6 - BOY, born March 20, 2005 Parker is a handsome boy with big brown eyes! He is moderately cognitively delayed, and has a secondary cardiopathy. Parker will be a wonderful son!

Lance $6

Frank $6

Rhonda $6 -Girl, born 1/22/2000

Meet this eleven year old cutie pie! She is the winner of a Good Student Award in 2011. She enjoys learning and her classmates and likes to serve others as well. She is good at imitating sounds and using signs. She enjoys music and has made tremendous progress in her development over the last few years. She is described as a calm, contented and very resilient girl with Chromosomal Disorder and Microcephaly. Given her special needs she has come far and would only gain more with a family to call her own!

Prudence $6 - Girl, born March 4, 2000

AWARD WINNER!! This little girl is the winner of the Most Studious in her class! In the eyes of her teachers she is a positive, enthusiastic and very hardworking student. By holding the wrist of an adult she is able to walk and enjoys listening to music. Although she is considered to be a child with severe special needs she is described as one of the most responsive children in her home. She loves to be sung to, talked to, touched , hugged and giggles out loud when tickled. She has a history of respiratory illnesses, congenital chromosomal disorder and global developmental delay due to mental retardation. Despite her diagnoses of multiple health issues, this sweetheart continues to grow and live joyfully every day. She deserves to enjoy the one-on-one family relationship that only a family can give her!!

Russ $10

Francis $10

Linda $10 - Girl, DOB: July 26, 2005 Location: Asia

Linda has mild developmental delays. She receives speech therapy once a week. She’s currently living with a foster family.Photos, a video and additional information is available through the agency.

Alisha $10

Johanna and Jordan $18

Please - share these faces - even if you can't donate, please share - you never know where their Mommy and Daddy might first see their faces and fall in love with them !

Saturday, March 31, 2012

47

UPDATED !!!

PLEASE SEE THE UPDATED LIST OF CHILDREN WHO STILL NEED TO LEAP OVER THE $20 WALL !!!

With a couple of days to go before our deadline - Easter - we still have 39 children aged over 6 with less than $20 in their accounts. A MUCH better number than the 125 we started with !! Many of the 39 still have less than $10 - but I just KNOW we can get those grants up and over those walls - of first $10, and then $20 !!

Here are the 39 - it's simple - click on their name, and donate away !! I've listed them with those with the least first - please, if you can, help them out, and if you can't, please share - get those names and faces out their so their new families can find them !!

I NEED $15 !!!

I NEED $14 !!!

I NEED $10 !!!

Please - do what you can for these kids - they need ALL the help they can get !!

THANK YOU !!!!!

Saturday, March 24, 2012

The original zeros.

This post is more for my reference than anything else, so feel free to totally ignore it !! I was looking at my notes from back when I started the Zero the Zeros campaign - and thought that here would be as good a place as anywhere to document what has happened. It'll certainly save me from having little notebooks and scraps of paper all over the place :) So - I'll be listing all of the original zeros - the older kids who, up until last fall, did not have their own grants - so when they DID get a grant of their own (instead of a collective "older child" grant), they had zero. Along side their name, I will put how much they have in their grants as of today, March 24th 2012. I will not be including children who were added later, or who aged into the older age group. Only the original older kids with zero as of around October 1st 2011. It's a long list, so, like I said, feel free to skip it altogether :)

DS Boys 6-9

Will #21-1 - MFFM
Samuel #3-2 - $20
Sheridan - $50
Maksim S. 14G - $67.50
Nikita K. - $50
Denis D. - $21
Ahmed R. - $20
Cyril S. - $20
Kyle #7-1 - $1261
Jordan - $20
Nicholas 2H - $15
Sasha - $2111.50
Ruslan - $836
Andrue #6-4 - $45
Davey - $10
Mickey - $110.70
Alexei - $10
Zane - $20
Kyle - $10
Grant - $1140
Andrew - MFFM
Luke - $20
Jeff - $130
Drew #6-1 - $23
Marty #6-7 - $45
Mikale #6-6 - $10
Madden - $55
Dylan - $100

DS Girls 6-9

Ellie 46 -$57.65
Catherine P. 8CH - $126
Danielle 2H - $1028
Megan - $39
Dasha - $90
Anjelica - $10
Isabelle #2-2 - $243
Trista - MFFM
Jolene 26HA - $77.50
Tiana 26HA - $67.50
Claire 26HA - MFFM

Other Angel Boys 6-9

Alan $32.50
Russ $10
Artem 13G - $321.93
William $101
Gregory J. 8CH $194
Donald $6
Ross $6
Matvey $33.50
Nathan - $6
Alexander G. 13G - $100
Troy - $20
Carter $27.60
Patrick 2H - $20
Joey - $20
Alix - $65.11
Sealey - $20
Samson - $1053.50
Anderson - $5
Silas - $184
Dane - $100
David - $135
Jason - $20
Evan - $20
Bobby - $673
Harrison - MFFM
Glenn - $20
Dmitri - $6
Phillip - MFFM
Andrew - $20
Caesar $5
Parker - $6
Sasha - $5
Niko - $5
Arthur - $20
Vitaly - $20
Galen - $500
Walter - $5
Kristopher - $89.50
Erik - $10

Other Angel Girls 6-9

Marley #60-1 - MFFM
Samantha & Kristina - $118
Christine S. 8CH - $5
Janna - $1020
Elaine - $20
Iryna $140.05
Olive - $55
Erin - $10
Patti - $23
Marina - MFFM
Nastya - $133.65
Leila - $55
Chrystyna - $51
Allie - CH - $20
Anastasia - $160
Alisha - $10
Natalia - $1254.75
Yasmine - $155.61
Lauren - $40
Berkeley - $82.50
Noel - $20
Brittany - $5
Elise - $38.50
Linda - $10
Judie - $5

HIV 6-9

Susan - MFFM
Steffie - $23
Jenny - $23
Ana 26HA - $6
Yuri - $6
Ilyssa - $31
Andrew P. 26HA - $6
Drew B. 26HA - $6
Mark 14 - $6
Alicia - $457
Eric - $6
Avery 3G - $6
Andrey - $6
Benjamin 15H - $21.60
Maggie 2H - $30
Rafferty - MFFM
Katerina 2H - $50
David 2H - $6
James - MFFM
Greg 2H - $4733.97
Marjorie - $27.50
Christian - $6
Taylor - $6
Yelena - $6
McKenna - $20
Cindy - $21
Drew B. 26HA - $6
George - $63
Cindy $21

DS Boys 10+

Kade #16-2 - $100
Daniel 15H - $105
Brett #19-1 - $102.70
Kolya 15H - $1055
Heath - $4887.94
Andruis - $387
Dylan #17-3 - $20
Adam $16-1 - $56
Michael - $20
Tanner #31-1 - $20
Daniel #14-2 - $20
Daniel - $145
Marlowe #2-3 - $20
Dixon #2-3 - $20
Cullen #12-4 - MFFM

DS Girls 10+

Heather - $155
Stephie #49-4 - $237.30
Veronika L69 - $45
Amelia #2-1 - $164.50
Dawn #17-1 - $20
Lynette #17-2 - $20
Emilija L64 - $20
Natalija L60 - $24
Angelia - $20
Harmony - $714
Margit #6-4 - $210

Other Angel Boys 10+

Maxim O. - $6626
Emmitt - $1287.50
Tyler - MFFM
Andrew $99
Alex - $104.40
Lance - $6
Frank - $6

Other Angel Girls 10+

Makayla #11-16 - MFFM
Laurel - $7902.81
Kristie - $90
Alexis - MFFM
Justine - $100
Kiersten - $140.48
Prudence - $6
Rhonda - $6

HIV 10+

Jack 23 - $5001.60
Brian - $27.60
Estelle - $405
Gerard - $22
Marat - MFFM
Tim 26HA - $4140
Yana - $1231.70
Vlad - $45
Devon - $10
Larissa - $200
Irina 26HA - $28
Kate 26HA - $20

Again - these are all the children - according to my records - who were listed with Reece's Rainbow and had zero in their account when I started this blog.

There are 41 of these kids - the original zeros - who still have less than $20 in their grants. That just isn't right. I have seen SO many children listed since then who have had their grants grow by the hundreds and thousands - while these kids get nothing.

As always - share - pray - donate !!

The Missing face

As promised (though a day late), I had a look at my last post, and found out who I had missed in my listing of children with less than $10. Amazingly - someone beat me to it, and she was already up to $20 !! Thank you, whoever you are :)

I did say I would donate to her, though - so I sent a few $ her way.

This is Maggie -

Date of Birth: June 21, 2005

The mother's rights were terminated by court. There is no father. Diagnosis: HIV+, dermatitis, umbilical hernia, dysarthria (she attends speech therapy). The children at this orphanage receive excellent medical therapy and have had their innoculations. Maggie is a normal, sociable, playful and happy child who tends to be a leader among the other kids. Additional photos are available.

She was born on my 8th wedding anniversary ! She'll be turning 7 this year - she would make a wonderful daughter, don't you think ?

Please share - pray - donate !!

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

I was going to beg

I was ready to start begging, but the numbers are slowly, slowly getting lower. I know I keep saying we're taking baby steps, but sometimes they are so agonizing slow I hardly see them move. I am not a patient person, and find myself checking the grants far too often - you know how a watched kettle never boils ? I guess I've got to stand back and stop watching - baby steps :)

Since my last post, there are now 5 more members of the $20 Club, and 7 kids have inced over the $10 barrier !! That's all in just four days - so I really can't complain - can I ? There are now "only" 55 children with less than $20, and "only" 35 of them have less than $10 !!

I'm going to focus on the 35 today - every single one of them are in either the "Other Angels" or "HIV" categories - both 6-9 year olds, and 10+ year olds. None of them are getting younger, and we all know what that means - an institution for life - or kicked out onto the streets for a life of drugs and prostitution.

First - those without a picture :( Read the descriptions - close your eyes - picture the children. Imagine them with a family. Maybe yours ??

Rhonda - Meet this eleven year old cutie pie! She is the winner of a Good Student Award in 2011. She enjoys learning and her classmates and likes to serve others as well. She is good at imitating sounds and using signs. She enjoys music and has made tremendous progress in her development over the last few years. She is described as a calm, contented and very resilient girl with Chromosomal Disorder and Microcephaly. Given her special needs she has come far and would only gain more with a family to call her own!

Prudence - AWARD WINNER!! This little girl is the winner of the Most Studious in her class! In the eyes of her teachers she is a positive, enthusiastic and very hardworking student. By holding the wrist of an adult she is able to walk and enjoys listening to music. Although she is considered to be a child with severe special needs she is described as one of the most responsive children in her home. She loves to be sung to, talked to, touched , hugged and giggles out loud when tickled. She has a history of respiratory illnesses, congenital chromosomal disorder and global developmental delay due to mental retardation. Despite her diagnoses of multiple health issues, this sweetheart continues to grow and live joyfully every day. She deserves to enjoy the one-on-one family relationship that only a family can give her!!

Walter - Walter is hearing impaired and currently wears hearing aids. There is additional information available through the agency, including an updated auditory report.

Caesar - Caesar currently lives in foster care. He is diagnosed with developmental delays and may also have symptoms of Autism. He is described as kindhearted and does not bully the other children.

Dmitri - Diagnosis: vegetative-vascular dystonia, scoliosis

Judie - This little beauty is almost seven years old and continues to blossom every day! She is a little girl who enjoys stable health in the past year and is considered to be strong and resilient. Her never give up spirit has been encouraging to the others in her home and it is hoped her forever family will come forward to bring her home soon! Her medical history includes feedings by gastrostomy tube, epilepsy and blindness. She is being provided with ongoing physiotherapy and it is believed she will be a blessing to an adoptive family who is willing to embrace the possible challenges and unknowns in her future.

Victoria - Diagnosis: mental delay, microcephaly, partial hemiparesis, kyphoscoliosis, crossed eyes.

Parker - Parker is a handsome boy with big brown eyes! He is moderately cognitively delayed, and has a secondary cardiopathy. Parker will be a wonderful son!

Anderson - Anderson is a sweet boy who is blessed to still be at his baby house. He is significantly cognitively delayed, and needs a loving family to help his achieve his potential. He does not have any words, but communicates through other sounds. He is able to walk and is physically active. he is facing the mental institution soon, hope someone will consider him and give him the life he so deserves!

(Parker and Anderson do have photos in their listings, but they are too large place here)

Look at these faces - really look at them - look into their eyes - they deserve so much more.

I know there's someone missing, but I can hardly keep my eyes open - if you figure out who it is and leave me a comment, I'll donate to their grant tomorrow. If no-one tells me who it is, I'll find out for myself tomorrow, and devote a whole blog post to them. And donate to them Please, pick one of those beautiful faces, click on their picture, and help them get to $10 - or even better, to $20 - or more !!!

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Less than $10

We are down to 60 children with less than $20 in their grants. Three boys joined the $20 Club this week - Cullen, Carter and Glenn ! Also - Mason now has a family committed to adopting him - I can't wait to see who they are and follow along on their journey :)

I have been seeing wonderful things happening recently with the older kids - several have been committed to, and many have been seeing a huge growth in their grants thanks to Julia's Mulligan Stew Giveaway. This runs until the end of March - please, head over, read her latest post - about her new friend Andrew - and donate away !!

I must admit, though, that I find myself baffled at times. I don't just keep track of the grant amounts for the kids with less than $20 - every few days I go through all of the older kids listed on Reece's Rainbow - those with less than $20, those with more than $20, and those with no grants at all yet.

I see some children, who obviously have advocates, who seem to get a little more in their grants on a regular basis.

I see some who have leaps in their grants occasionally.

I see those who are featured in giveaways, and just rejoice in seeing their grants get bigger and bigger.

I see kids with a few hundred, even a few thousand, in their grants, who never seem to get any more.

I see kids newly listed who get over the $20 threshold and beyond almost as soon as they are listed.

Then I see "my" kids.

I see kids who were zeros last September, who were blessed to get above zero - just. I see them stay at the same amount, day after day, week after week. Month after month. I don't understand.

Do people really see them as zeros still ?

As not worthy ?

Do people think there's no point in donating to someone who has so little ? ?

Out of the 60 children with less than $20 in their accounts...

42 of them have less than $10.

Can we do something about that ? Can we at least get them above $10 - and THEN work on getting them above $20 ?? Please - help - spread the word, and see what we can do. Four or five dollars is all it takes. Remember - we're taking baby steps - raise their grants, get their faces out there, find their families.

I'll even make it easier - here are links to all the kids with less than $10.

Several of them don't have a picture in their listing, so I do kind of understand why they don't get donated to - they are the kids with the triply whammy against them - they're older, they have no picture, and next to nothing in their grant. Who even stops to read a listing with no picture ?

What chance do they have of being adopted ??

Something else is pretty plain, too - out of the 42 kids with less than $10 - THIRTY of them are boys.

Please, as always, help if you can, share if you can.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Sixty three !!

Just a quickie today - to let you know that we are now down to only 63 children aged 6+ with less than $20 in their grants. There are 4 weeks until Easter - so I'm pretty sure we CAN make the goal of having every child over 6 join the $20 Club !! Please help, if you can !!

In the mean time - here's a link to the biggest giveaway in town right now - it benefits many many children and families - including Heath ! - and although I'm sure many of you have already heard about it, on the off chance that there's someone who hasn't - here it is !!

MULLIGAN STEW

Please head over there and do what you can !!