I tried to think of a way that people could help the children in Russia in other ways.  I thought about the most basic thing that the children are lacking, hats and shoes.  My experience with Mirnoe orphanage taught me that many of the children cannot attend school because they do not have shoes.  The weather in Khabarovsk in the winter is so cold that they cannot go out without hats.  It is also a cultural practice that all children must wear hats outside.

When a children’s home only receives 24 cents a day per child to feed and clothe them proper clothing often goes by the wayside.

I know many people who are knitters.  I once knew how to knit (badly).  Knitting a hat is not that difficult, especially when you have one of those circle loom things.  Heck, even the trusty husband could knit a hat with one of those.  So why not appeal to people for hats?  While we’re at it, why not appeal for shoes too.

Sweet Hope is starting an on-going collection of hats (no, you don’t have to knit them) and shoes.  If you find hats and shoes on sale consider picking a few up.  Ship them to us and we will then ship them to a family traveling to Russia.

Why do this?  First, you’ll be helping children get to school.  Life is nothing without a proper education.  Especially for children who will be put on the street at 16 years old.  Second, families traveling for their first visit trips are usually expected to bring donations of items to their orphanage.  Going out to purchase donations is another financial hurdle in the already expensive process of Russian adoption.  By helping families with a portion of their donation they will be that much closer to bringing their child home.  After all, Sweet Hope started as an organization to help adoptive families.

The trusty husband and I will house all of the donation and ship them to the traveling families.  All you have to do is send them to us.  If you would like to donate shoes or hats please email me.  If you are a potential adoptive family preparing for your first (or second) trip to Russia and would like to take shoes and hats email me.

Once our son was home we continued to get demands for the delicious truffles everyone had purchased.  We no longer needed to raise money for our own adoption, but knew there were plenty of families in our same situation.  We repeated the sales in December of 2006 and the proceeds were given to a family adopting a little girl from Bryansk, Russia.

More emails poured in asking for more candy.  We sold truffles again for Mother’s Day 2007.  The proceeds from those sales benefited a family adopting a little boy from Vladivostock, Russia.

We repeated our success in December 2007 with record sales.  Unfortunately, we did not have anyone apply for the funds so the balance went to pay off some of our own adoption debt.

In 2008 the vision of Sweet Hope has changed.  We understand there will always be families out there in need of extra money to complete adoptions, but at the same time there are also children who will never be adopted.

Children in institutional settings are often there because of medical conditions that prevent them from being adopted or they are considered too old for adoption.  Our focus is to raise awareness for older children and children with medical conditions in orphanages worldwide.  The Sweet Hope organization is attempting to raise funds to assist children in need.  The proceeds from the sale of all of our candy goes directly to Baby House #2 in Khabarovsk, Russia.

In 2008 the Baby Home was able to purchase toys and medical equipment for the children.

We are also trying to raise the capital to create a documentary about the life of older and handicapped orphans in Russia.  We have the support of the Slavyanka Women’s Society in Khabarovsk, Russia.  We just need the money to get there to film the documentary.