Children's Hospital Donation

For those of you who know me, you know me. You know that my heart is with the children and to do whatever we can to make a difference in their life. I created the 501(c)(c) nonprofit organization in 2007 after earning a National Promising Practice Award after Piloting the characters in an elementary school. Ever since that day, I have not been paid, other than by words of encouragement. This is truly wonderful because we all need encouragement and support when we are following our passion.

However, kind words don't fulfill the Superhero activity boxes we donate to children's hospitals in Tennessee, Illinois and Texas. I find it disturbing that it's so difficult to find funding to do such good things for our children, our communities, our families and our future in the world we all live in. Some of you may see me as annoying as myself or our organization are always trying to find donations or sponsors for the activity boxes. Well, we can't just donate them. We have no paid staff, everything that we do is done in great love because we know that these Characters of Character are making a difference and we will continue to open doors, jump through hoops and step out of our comfort zone knowing that there is a need and appreciation for them.

I encourage you to visit our website to learn about our project to donate to our children in the hospital. What a scary place for many of them and their families and to bring a little comfort and joy to engage them in positive and uplifting messages and activities should make your heart do the happy dance as it does mine!

Where do we donate to? In Illinois we donate to Shriner's children's hospital, Rush children's hospital, Ann & Robert Lurie's Children's hospital and Northwest Medicine in McHenry, Huntley and Woodstock. They have been well received as you might imagine and are being requested. In Tennessee they are donated to the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt in Nashville, East Tennessee Children's Hospital, Vanderbilt Clinic in Clarksville and the Kids Rainbow Clinic in Clarksville, Tennessee. Also very well received. In Texas to the South Texas Children's Hospital. We are not allowed to take photos or ask for photos of the children due to privacy issues which we understand.

Now, please know that we write grants to try to fulfill these Superhero activity boxes, we do little fundraisers and reach out often for donations. It is hard! What we would really like is to find a business, a group, an organization a Family Philanthropy, a Team, etc. who would like to learn more and support our Superhero activity boxes to fulfill and get them into the heart and hands of our children and youth. As a small nonprofit time is valuable and if we can rest assured that we can donate these on a quarterly basis would be a huge peace of mind.

All proceeds are directly to fulfill the box. There is a lot that goes into the boxes, first we order all the contents and supplies. When a donation of $5,000.00 from a person or place happens we screen print on each and everyone of the inside flaps of the sturdy and colorful Superhero box their logo. We screen print on all the canvas which say, I AM SUPER, we laminate each Character of Agent badge and add it to a Characters of Character lanyard. We autograph each and everyone of the greeting cards included in each box. We have to fold and assemble each box, and then we add the Superhero activity book, watercolor paints and brush, an easel to display the canvas which is added, crayons, Superhero mask and lanyard which are placed inside a cellophane bag to eliminate germs on the felt mask, and a Superhero sticker. Plus, A LOT of love! We form an assembly line and fold, fill, fold and ship!

What's a little disturbing to me is the struggle and time it takes to find donations or sponsors or support for these boxes which are going to the children. Characters of Character has been here since late 2007, we have published over thirty books, brought all nine characters to life in costume, visited schools, communities and libraries and we are not going anywhere, ever! The characters have impacted thousands of children and will continue to do so because we know all to well the importance of teaching a child they are SUPER, to build their confidence, to share messages of good manners, respect and kindness so that they become role models for their peers and their community.

We hope you'll join us in this great endeavor to make a difference in the life of a child. You can learn more how to support our organization on different levels, whatever makes you feel comfortable, and hope that you will share us, talk about us and encourage us to keep on doing what we're doing! YOU ARE SUPER and we appreciate you! Our newsletter offers plenty of FREE content to share and teach or reinforce our nine core values with the Characters of Character, too!

Miss Joni