We Are Home...Thank You for your Friendship...A Special Need...The Biggest Project Yet.

Thank you for every one of your comments and for your prayers and support this past week. It has meant the world to me and I will let you all know how things are progressing with my Grandmother.

I would like to send out a very special thank you to Verna. She makes the graphics for all of the fundraisers and baby showers. I have to say that the one above takes the cake. This is just so beautiful Verna.

If you look on my sidebar, you can see links with the photos of different children on them. Each of these children needs surgery in the near future. They are all affiliated with Amanda and the Starfish Foster Home. A couple of them are currently at larger orphanages in China, but Amanda has been asked to help.

This is going to need to be a little bit different than our traditional giving. These children need a large amount of money. Approx 3k per child. If you are willing to sponsor a child by putting their link on your blog, please leave a comment and we will be sure to get their link to you. The hope is that each sponsoring blog will be able to raise funds by doing a garage sale, bake sale, lemonade stand, donating blog design fees, holding an on-line auction, church donation, car wash etc. This could be a great family project.

Please let me know if you would like to participate.

The post below is taken from Chinese Starfish.

Donations for Surgeries
There have been some interesting developments of late. The orphanages I work with have been calling me about some of the babies that need medical care, hoping that I can help. It has taken almost three years to get to this point and I feel that they are beginning to trust me to find the best care for their children. I have decided to try raise the funds and this is the reason I am writing today: To ask for your help. I am unable to bring them to Starfish right now, which makes me sad but I know that if I help with the surgeries while they are in the orphanage, then they will have a better chance at getting adopted.
I hope that in the faces of the children, you will see a need that you can do something about because the children who could use a helping hand. Maybe it is foregoing a dinner at a restaurant, a DVD or a new pair of shoes and contributing that money to our tax free foundation. By doing that you will make a permanent difference in the lives of these children. People often tell me that they cannot contribute much. I will accept whatever you can donate because I know this: The power is in combining all of those "small" donations and making something 'big" out of it. As in the story from which I took our name, you too can become a starfish thrower, by helping a child to get the necessary surgeries to become healed.

1) Breanna: She is at Starfish right now and we have raised about 2/3 of the money needed for her heart surgery. April has been so eager to help her and to honor all of her efforts, I have decided to have the surgery done in April. We are going to go ahead and do the surgery next week because it is a convenient time for Dr Li in Hangzhou. We need a additional US$1600 to cover the cost.

2) Emily: Emily is our latest addition at Starfish and it would seem that she has a parasitic twin, I still have to confirm that. Regardless, the surgery will be done at the SCMC in the middle of April to remove the growth and this surgery is also partially paid for. The funds were donated to us by the Interkom auction that I went to in Shanghai last week. This even was presented by the high school students, who through their efforts raised 20 000RMB (US$2800) to help a baby get surgery. We are short about US$1 400 for that.

There is a selection of children with Spina Bifida still in the orphanage:

1) A little boy whose picture they sent to me. He is about 8 months old. I just love that little face.
2) Two girls with SB they spent pictures of.

3) I also know of three older children who are in need of some surgery. Two are is seven and they both have to have surgery on three botched attempts to heal their SB. Another girl is four and she was just just left by her family about two weeks ago. We are planning on getting these three on a schedule with Dr Lazareff and his team who will be back in China in October of this year. I was so happy to hear about this.
Please donate through Groundspring on our website http://www.chinesestarfish.org/ You will see the "Donate now" button on the right hand bottom of the page. If you donate, you are welcome to choose a baby and we will make sure we send you some information about the surgeries and the baby's progress over the next few months. The average amount needed for the spina bifida surgeries if there are no complications is about US$3500 to $4000. The heart surgeries can vary depending on the heart condition and this can be between US$3000 to $5000. I will also let you know when the surgeries have been fully funded. I want to keep Dr Bao busy at the SCMC!!! I am just kidding. He is busy enough without all my babies. You have to fight for his OR time and a bed in the hospital. SCMC is a really busy and very famous all over China.
Thank you so much for your support and for allowing me to do this kind of work. I could not do this without the generous donations of the people who follow the adventures of Starfish. It has been an awesome experience for me, one that has defined my life and I am so grateful for the chance to help heal a child and to be there to make sure they have everything they need to find a family.
Life, Love and Laughter,
AmandaStarfish Foster Home
http://www.chinesestarfish.org/
http://chinesestarfish.blogspot.com/