2016 Gifts to the NICU Book Project

Check this out: Carolyn Rich-Denson donated 68 brand new books to our NICU book project. Sixty of the books are board books which are so valuable for little hands. Babies need to touch and turn pages without worrying about harming the books. Thank you Carolyn. I always run out of board books, so your donation will help build a lot of packets.

My friend, Michelle, has been beyond generous to our book project. Look at all the fun books she found for the babies - 39 more books of all types. I appreciate her consistent support of this project. She donated 365 books to our project last year - one for each day of the year.

Because of donations like these and from other people who have donated books this year, we were able to continue this project in a bigger way than I could ever do on my own. Thank you all for your support.

I feel that these gifts honor my two babies who didn't survive pregnancy as this project was started in their memory and that of two grandchildren who didn't survive pregnancy. These books are gifts that help other babies who were born too soon or who were born needing the services of the NICU.

2016 donors:

• Michelle Schwendiman
• Carolyn Rich-Densen
• Janet Newbold
• Angela Jensen
• Cayli and Brandon Johnson
• Alysen Jeffries
• Angie Moore (my NICU nurse daughter)
• Anne Marie Stirbis
• Catherine Crosby (me)

Together we gathered a total of 1,123 books for the NICU in 2016, which is nearly double what they would have received had I been doing this on my own. This means we gave 224 babies a packet of five books. 224 families were able to read to their babies while their babies were in the NICU. 224 families were able to start building lifelong readers and help their babies develop stronger vocabularies and attention spans. 224 families were able to use books to calm themselves in a stressful situation. 

Thanks to each of you who made this possible. 

Email me if you'd like to know how to contribute to our NICU project as we are always looking for good quality books for infants and toddlers for this project. 

Edited to add: Here is a link to a book registry at Amazon where you can purchase books that will be shipped to us for the babies. Book Registry at Amazon for NICU