Great news from Taraz!

Here is part of an email we received from our contact in Taraz!

"We are in the process of planning the shopping trip. It's going to take a bit of planning to pull off taking all of the kids to the store. I spoke with the vice director giving her a heads up last week. She seemed to be concerned that some of the kids wouldn't be able to handle picking out their own gifts. Today we went and spoke with the manager at the store and he is open to us coming. We will talk to the vice director more on Thursday and try to encourage her that it will be a good learning experience for them (how to behave in a store, how to make decisions, how to operate in a budget, etc). We are hoping to take all but a couple groups of the youngest children to the store and allow the kids to pick out their own gifts. For those that don't get to go, we will have their caregivers help choose gifts for them. Each child will be able to spend 2000 T. We will also probably purchase some candy and possibly some fruit for each child above the 2000 T to give them with their gifts.

We are going to take shifts of kids to the store, one or two groups at a time. We will give them 30 minutes to make their selections. We will place a label on the gift they choose and then place it into carts. At the end of the day (hopefully after about 6 shifts of children) we will check out all the gifts, take them back to the office, spend time wrapping the gifts, and deliver them around New Years. It should be lots of fun. We will work on getting pictures to send back to you ... we may have a problem getting pictures in the store itself (since they usually don't allow them), but we will try to convince them to make an exception for us. I will let you know how things go as we continue in the process."


Donations we have received in honor of others:

Contributor: Kari speckman
In honor of: Alla

Contributor: Sarah Lockwood
In honor of: Kevin, Happy Birthday sweetheart :-)

Contributor: Beth Sanders
In honor of: Drew

Contributor: Brian Ridge
In honor of: Susan Serra

Contributor: Jane Herlihy
In honor of: Leeza Grace Serra

Contributor: Judith Krieger
In honor of: Saule Buettner from Taldy Korgan

Contributor: Michelle Zelazny
In honor of: Serik from Taraz

Contributor: Andrew and Alaina Falk
In honor of: Patrick, Calvin and Titus


Thank you to the following people who have sponsored orphans to date:

The Beasley Family (NC)
The Robinson Family (RI)
The Strieby Family (CA)
Deborah Smith and Family (NY)
The Gobble Family (OK)
Pink Watermelon Kids (MD)
Ellen Bresnick (MD)
Jennifer Collins and Family (MO)
The Sykora Family (CT)
Jody Yeh and Family (SC)
The Siachta Family (PA)
The Cohen Family (CT)
The Nunes Family (NJ)
The Hoffa Family (PA)
The Edwards/Schmidt Family (NY)
Marcia Krull and Family (WI)
Patty Bilbro (NC)
The Elrod Family (IL)
Michael Scott and Family (MA)
Eric Newton and Family (MA)
The Karp Family (NY)
Sybille Vought and Family (MI)
The Lloyd Family (TX)
Renee Rudis and Family (TN)
The Serra Family (FL)
Toni Rosendahl and Family (CA)
Cathy Williams and Family (FL)
Ginger Reichl and Family (FL)
Linda Rendleman and Family (FL)
The Brody Family (CT)
The Cuales Family (NC)
Tina Akavan and Family (FL)
The Bari-Guida Family (NY)
The Snyder Family (IA)
The Moore Family (MS)
William Price and Family (FL)
The Lewis Family (SC)
The Hochstetler Family (IN)
Brenda Menard and Family (RI)

A special thank you to Mateo and Natalia Sapp, both adopted from Kazakhstan, for using their own money to sponsor an orphan.

Our thanks to everyone for donating so far! We are incredibly blessed to have such great support. Because of your generosity the children of Taraz are going to have a great holiday!

Don't forget the deadline to sponsor an orphan is December 1st!