The Story of 500 Dolls.. and What Comes Next

500 Dolls

This is the story of how a question “What can we do right now?” turns into a movement, and of how that movement reaches from the highest reaches of the military and of philanthropy to cancer patients and isolated retired elderly folks.

In 2005 Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast and two women who had been school friends were talking on the telephone about the situation. One of them asked the other “What can we do right now?” and out of that a nonprofit organization, Project K.I.D., was formed to provide temporary child care to children in the midst of disasters. The mission was to keep children safe and to intervene early enough with support so that there could be post-traumatic growth instead of stress, and so that the child and the family would together discover their own capacities for resilience and for growth.

By the end of the Katrina disaster period, Project K.I.D. had cared for over 5000 children and had established a network with civilian and military and first responder organizations which enables it to reach out immediately. However, it also still remains a group of friends who talk and challenge and question constantly.

At that same time, fires were raging in California, and a feral kitten needed an amputation. The two people who saved his life, and adopted him, began to reach out to their friends to tell the story of how bringing an amputee cat into a dog-loving home was transforming lives. One email to twenty people has turned into 40,000 letters answered, two books and two workbooks on healing and resilience distributed to military families, schools, hospitals and children who would not otherwise own a book. This is the Just Me Project, and the five friends who run it constantly ask “What can we do right now?”

When the earthquake struck Haiti, the Project K.I.D. network started buzzing with the need for child safety and relief. As the grim picture began to portray the medical situation, two friends, one from Project K.I.D. and one from The Just Me Project talked of their shared concerns and need for a simple way to help the children of Haiti, especially those having a limb amputated, or homeless, or wondering if all members of their family had died.

“What can we do right now?” was answered by “Let’s make amputee stuffed toys for the kids to cuddle.” The research about the positive impact on the child and the family of having a toy ‘like them’, missing a limb, or not quite as others are, is clear. Such a toy makes conversations about the limb loss easier, and reduces the fear and reframes the challenge into something that can be met. Besides, we knew these children had nothing left to call their own, least of all a toy.

First there were two dolls, then there were fourteen, then there were four dozen. Suddenly, folks from across the country started calling, saying “This is something we can do right now.” Women’s groups, families, community groups, gatherings of friends are coming together to make the toys and send them off to Project K.I.D.’s container. Tonight in Orange County, California and in northern Canada, groups of friends are having a potluck while they sew and box up the toys. The Project K.I.D. founder, Lenore Ealy, had said “let’s see if we can get 500 dolls.” And she sent out an email about that.

We have long passed getting 500 dolls on their way to children in Haiti. It took under ten days.

We still ask “What can we do right now?” And the answers are:

We can get backpacks and fill them with underwear and clothes and basic necessities

We can send tents, and all sorts of unused camping equipment

We can get crutches in all sizes

We can send school supplies

We can make mothering kits.

And so it goes on, and everyone who gets involved will keep asking the question
“What can we do right now?”

Each person’s network of friends will answer. And the amazing thing is that everyone who sews up a toy, or hosts a potluck, or forwards an email to someone who can get answers for someone else feels grateful that they can help.

One contributor said “I’m so glad that I can do this, even though I will never know what it means to someone else, it means my world is bigger and I feel a part of that world.”

Heather Wood Ion
2/3/2010