Q1-2007: A perfect beginning by God's grace
Dear Members,
On behalf of all the trustees and Governors of United for Kids Foundation (UKF), I will like to thank you for your invaluable support during a very eventful and fulfilling quarter (Q1-2007), may God reward your generosity abundantly. We achieved quite a lot by God’s grace this quarter: we brought smiles to many faces at the Ikeja General Hospital (IGH), the Bab Es Salaam Children’s orphanage (BES), the Hearts of Gold Hospice (HOG) and the Children’s Transit Home (CTH). In addition, we incorporated UKF in the State of Maryland, USA and are almost finalizing plans to roll out our UKF Prescription Assistance Program (UKF-PAP) for less privileged patients at the IGH. Please read details of these and more “in the words” of our trustees who volunteered their time to make dreams come true.
IGH:
We visited IGH on January 20th, February 17th and March 17th 2007. We are extremely grateful to the trustees and members who consistently spared their time and money to do the shopping and make the visits happen. We continued our practice of providing groceries and supplies to the kids in the children’s and premature babies’ wards. In January, we were able to partner with a pharmacy to provide prescribed medication to a patient with cancer of the blood. As usual, we used “on the spot cash” donated by members to help stranded pediatric patients and their families: we were able to provide pampers and baby formula for an abandoned baby during February’s visit and In March, we shared N14,000 among kids who had Meningitis, Typhoid, Respiratory problems and Malaria.
With the state of medical care facilities, increasing cases of child abandonment and poverty, we have realized that there is a lot of work for people like us to do at IGH; we hope you will continue to support us and join our visits so that we can cover more ground in the future.
BES:
Once again, we want to thank the members who helped us ensure that the children at BES were not left out of the Eid Kabir festivities this year. We had a party for the kids on January 14th 2007 and I am sure you will agree with me that the kids had a good time when you view the pictures: http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=16qe66wt.6ngf0r1h&Uy=tayih6&Ux=0
HOG:
The quote, “One of the most amazing things in life is being the surprise answer to another person’s prayers”, really sums up what happened to us in February. With the two trustees in charge of HOG out of state, we were on the verge of disappointing the kids by canceling/rescheduling the Q1 visit, but by the grace of God and with the help of two wonderful members who stepped up to the plate, we had one of the most inspiring visits ever. Armed with the knowledge that staffing cost is a major challenge to HOG, we contributed a token of N70,000 to help with payment of staff salaries. Here are excerpts from the visit report written by Tope S. that completely melted by heart: “.. She had also just admitted an abandoned child that afternoon, the child (a girl) is about 5 months old; has hydrocephaly and was abandoned in a market place. The abandoned child was quite hungry as she ate quite voraciously when the nurse on duty gave her some milk, the poor girl must have been abandoned since morning…. The proprietor, Mrs. Laja estimated that she had about 32 kids in all with her at the moment but was very happy to tell us that 5 of her kids had been adopted in the last year and moved to various countries (Paris; Holland; Italy (2); and Germany)…There was only one nurse on duty and Mrs. Laja mentioned that Sundays especially can be a bit challenging for her as most of her staff want to go to church and spend time with their families. …We took a look at the 2nd building and apart from painting Mrs. Laja says they're all set…. the entire visit went well and it just reminded us again that a little love goes a long way for these little ones.”
If you can volunteer some time, HOG is located at 57 Adebola St, Off Adeniran Ogunsanya, Surulere, Lagos. I am sure they will appreciate your time.
CTH:
On February 24, 2007, the two trustees in charge of CTH took time out of their extremely busy schedules to make more dreams come true at the home in Idi-Araba. They monitored the progress of our projects in the home: The repairs of the mosquito nets had been completed, we are proud and thankful that with this, we will be helping the fight against malaria in that home. The trustees also noted that the classes we helped renovate are being well maintained. They delivered 4 bags of charcoal for cooking, 3 gallons of disinfectant, 12 bottles of Dettol and 12 chairs and 6 Tables for the Nursery classes during this visit.
We noted that CTH’s water well had dried up once again and the children had begun fetching water outside the home. In order to prevent severe damage to the pumping machine, which we repaired in 2006, our team immediately contacted a reliable plumber who moved to site with a digging crew to deepen the well. Although the cost of this project was just N23,000, we realized the importance of visiting at the time we did, had we not gone to CTH, these kids would have continued exposing themselves to danger by going out to the unsafe neighborhood to fetch water and the pumping machine would have been damaged. We really look forward to having the pleasure of your company during our visit to this home, which is one of our most important and vulnerable projects.
In Q2-2007, we hope to provide more text books for the kids, concretize the laundry area, install floor tiles in the common room, renovate existing play ground (provide swings, metal horse, etc.) and complete the last phase of the portable water distribution network. May God help us.
Other issues:
One of the things that gave us joy this quarter was the successful incorporation in the USA. United for Kids Foundation, Inc. is now a recognized entity in the state of Maryland, we have also been provided with a Federal Employer ID (Tax ID), we are now processing our tax exempt status, so that the donations you make to us will be tax deductible when you file your annual tax returns. Our mailing address is PO BOX 18022 Middle River MD 21220 USA; please take note of this when sending future donations.
We have had major discussions and negotiations with two pharmacies near the IGH and are very close to kicking off our prescription assistance program. With this program, we will eliminate the risk of patients’ parents/guardians using the money we give them to meet other needs unrelated to buying drugs for the sick kids we aim to help. We found divine favor during our negotiations and hope to begin this program in Q2-2007, may God bless the trustees who worked tirelessly and refused to give up when things seemed deadlocked and unsure.
We are still supporting Ariyo, the pediatric Urology patient we met in 2004. In March 2007, we gave his mother N3,500 to pay for his lesson fees. We are also helping out with logistics and arrangements to fly him abroad for a much needed surgery. One of our dedicated trustees has been able to secure appointments for Ariyo in a good London hospital (Johns Hopkins USA declined to reschedule his earlier scheduled appointment). We are hopeful that Ariyo and his mother will obtain UK visas shortly and proceed to London for the surgery. We sincerely thank everyone that has helped UKF help this woman and her sick child.
Going forward…..
In the next couple of days, we will be sending out the financial report for Q1-2007 as well as our plans/calendar for Q2-2007. Please get your checks and pens ready to send donations in for Q2, we will be ‘opening the window’ for donations next week by God’s grace.
Thank you very much and may God bless you all.
posted by United for Kids Foundation @ 11:11 PM
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