Peggy Gurrad Seeks Helping Hands

If you're reading this Blog, chances are quite good that you belong to one of several other Chinese adoption and family support groups, online. A friend of kids and one who has worked tirelessly to help make a difference in the lives of orphaned children in China is Peggy Gurrard. She put out the word several years ago about the need for cribs at the Ningdu CWI and the response was quite good. Peggy has again stepped forward with a call for support on several fronts that will help kids in several provinces, including Jiangxi. Although Ningdu is not specifically listed, its hoped that you may find joy in extending support for some very worthwhile projects that can only help the plight of abandoned kids from a part of the world where are kids were born. Here, in its entirety, is the text of a message that I recently received from Peggy.

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(Received, August 23, 2007)

Hi,

It’s been a while since I’ve sent out an update but Altrusa’s Orphanage Assistance program (mostly through Amity Foundation) is going strong thanks to the generous support from all of you. Amity now has a part time staff person in Jiangxi province so she is able to make more frequent visits to the orphanages. So we have now more frequent updates and have also found ways to improve our programs. Of course with these more frequent visits comes the identification of additional needs and requests for assistance.

FOSTER CARE

There has been a gradual increase in the number of children we are sponsoring in foster care so we are often in need of new sponsors, especially since not all sponsors are able to continue support over a long period of time. We are now up to 346 children sponsored in foster care! Many of these are children that are older and/or have special needs making it less likely they will ever be adopted so these foster homes may be their only chance at a loving family of their own. And these foster families really do care about the children, you can see it in their beaming faces when you visit and in the proud way they show off the child’s accomplishments. Right now we have these three children in need of a new sponsor because their previous sponsor isn’t able to continue:

16 year old girl with cerebral palsy from the Pingxiang orphanage

6 year old girl with "congenital dementia" from the Wanzai orphanage

6 year old girl with congenital heart disease from the Fuzhou Linchuan) orphanage

Most likely we will soon have some additional children in need of sponsors as their current sponsors are past due and not replying to our e-mail. So please let me know if you would be willing to sponsor a child in foster care. Due to changes in the exchange rate the cost is now $28 per month. Sponsors receive a brief report and photo twice a year. I know this is less frequent than some other organizations but you will be the only sponsor for your child (as opposed to several sponsors per child to pay admin costs) and Amity only charges a 7% admin fee (Altrusa doesn’t have any admin fees, we are totally volunteers). So most of your donation is going to the foster family and not to report writing. I hope some of you will be able to help.

SCHOOL TUITIONS

Thank you to all of you that sponsored school tuition for a child this past year. A combined “foster care and end of the school year” report will be arriving from Amity in another month or two so we hope to have these to you in October. We should have the list of which children will need school support by the end of September as the orphanages send this to Amity during September after school starts. The donation needed per child will again be $135 for kindergarten through middle school. Students in high school, vocation school, college/university and schools for the blind or deaf will be more and we’ll have to let you know those costs after we receive the list. The government in China is now paying for schooling through middle school unless the orphan is in a foster home and goes to a school different from the one they would have been assigned to if living at the orphanage. So not all the younger children in the orphanages need our support but the foster children do (which is the same as last year). If you would like to sponsor a younger child in school this year please go ahead and send in your $135 donation. If you sponsored a child last year and they are on this year’s list we’ll continue with the same child, otherwise we’ll choose a new child for you to sponsor. And if you may be able to sponsor the older children (or deaf or blind students) at a higher cost please let me know and I can e-mail you when we have the list with the costs.

HUGGING GRANNIES

Our Hugging Grannies continue to do wonderful work, giving extra attention to those children in the orphanages that don’t receive the benefit of a loving foster family. We now have 54 Hugging Grannies. Many work with handicapped children, others with infants, and some of the others provide tutoring to the older children or nursing care. Some also work with the foster children and families, for example they may teach the foster mother how to do exercises with their foster child that has cerebral palsy. We do have Hugging Grannies in need of support and any amount you are able to contribute would be much appreciated. The cost is currently $49 per month for their stipend. We have Hugging Grannies at many of the orphanages so this would be a great way to help the orphanage your child came from.

FORMULA AND OTHER NEEDS

There are also many other needs at the orphanages. We are providing formula on an ongoing basis to some of the orphanages and for some reason this has been a difficult need for us to find support for. And other items such as medical care or surgery, washing machines, heaters/air conditioners and water heaters are often requested. You could donate specifically for these needs or make a donation to “wherever most needed”.

Donations by check should be made out to Altrusa Foundation (tax deductible) and mailed to me at:

Altrusa Foundation
Attention: Peggy Gurrad
P.O. Box 1354
Longview, WA 98632

Or if you want to use a credit card you can donate online at www.networkforgood.org but they do charge 4.75% fee so if you could agree to pay that during the donation procedure it would mean the full amount needed would get to us. They do give you an option of setting up a recurring donation monthly, quarterly or yearly which would really help us, especially if you want to donate monthly or quarterly for a project such as foster care or formula/nutrition. Search for Altrusa International and then choose the one in Longview, WA with the above address (make sure you have the correct address including the correct PO Box).

You can also donate through PayPal.com (which is a good option for those of you outside the US). But there are fees with PayPal also so please consider adding about 3% for US donations and 4% of those from outside the US. Using my peggy@gurrad.com e-mail address will take you to the Altrusa Foundation account. If you’d like to set up a monthly donation through PayPal I can send you a link for that.

www.justgive.org is another option for credit card donations and they are currently charging us a 3% processing fee. If you want to donate with your American Express card, www.americanexpress.com/give, the processing fee will only be 2.25% and you can set up monthly donations. It will take about 4 to 7 weeks before I hear about these donations so please send me an e-mail to let me know you’ve donated. And if you could add the processing fee to your donation that would be an additional help to us. For these search for Altrusa in Longview and it’s the one with PO Box 1354.

YUNNAN – We also did a special appeal for assistance for an area in Yunnan province which is being coordinated by Holt and some of you donated towards this. There are many children there orphaned due to AIDS and the area is much poorer than those in Jiangxi province. They don’t even have orphanages for the children and they are staying with anyone who can be found that will take them in. The school aged orphans live at the schools which are having a very hard time taking care of them with no funding. Often the teachers give up part of their small salaries to provide them with supplies. We were able to buy a set of clothing for 143 of these schoolchildren (many of them only had one set). In addition we will help with other needs until Holt is able to get these children fully into their sponsorship programs.

Thank you again for the support you have given, what a difference all of you have made in the lives of these children!

Peggy Gurrad
www.altrusa.ws