Surprise NICU Book drive

One of Angie's coworkers shared our blog post about gathering books for the NICU with her sister-in-law who is a Young Women's group leader for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. This leader decided to have her Beehives do a book drive for our NICU babies.

Neither Angie (my NICU nurse daughter) or myself knew this was going to happen. The Beehives (12 and 13 year-old girls) from the South Weber 2nd Ward did this as a service project. Nicole Andersen sent the pictures of the girls and the flyers. Angie took pictures of the books and sent them to me. These sweet girls and leaders collected 286 books for our project.

I want to thank all in their ward who donated to this project. Your generous donations will comfort many families in our NICU. I am humbled that you would do this for us. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

 This is the flyer they delivered to the homes in their ward (neighborhood).

These are the amazing young women who donated their time and energy to our project. Thank you so very much. Yes, this did make me cry a little. I always feel a little closer to my own babies who didn't survive pregnancy when others feel compelled to help us. I feel like my little project to honor my babies has reached out and touched so many more people than I had ever hoped that it could. Thank you all again.

Words from their Young Women's leader, Nicole: "So glad we could help! They will be really excited [to be mentioned on this blog]. The girls took about an hour handing out flyers one night and then it took about an hour and a half to collect [the books] and another half hour to go through and make sure they were in good condition. So probably about two and half or three hours total."

Message to these incredible young women: Your service hours will touch the lives of at least 57 families. That is big. Fifty-seven more families will have books to read to their babies while they heal and grow in the NICU. Fifty-seven more babies will receive the gift of literacy because of your service. Thank you from me, Catherine Crosby

People are good.

Link to our NICU book registry if you'd like to donate books to babies in the newborn intensive care unit so their parents can read to them while they grow. You can also donate gently used books to our project by sending them to me or to Angie. Email me for a mailing address. We can use both English and Spanish books. If you have a graduate of the NICU, or if you have a baby whose life you would like to honor by donating books to this project, let me know, and I can make a book plate with their name for the books you donate.

Read to a child today even if that child is you.