Sunday, May 18, 2008

Care Package

TRANSLATED LETTER

Be sure to ask the staff/nannies to bring any mementos that were on your child the day of her find. One family was told that because they asked before hand; they brought the clothes and bottle that were found on the child the day of her abandonment. Priceless.

GIFTS FOR DAUGHTER

Socks and Jammies
Soft-bodied Doll that can be thrown into the washing machine
Small Photo Album - referral photo on outside, photos of us, home, her room
Small, Plastic Toy - such as stacking cups
Blanket - a soft fleece (one of those crib size ones) Some wash it and sleep with it a few nights so that their daughter would become familiar with their "scent".
Some bring duplicates of the items, just in case.

CAMERA INFO

Make sure you put the baby’s picture & name on camera. *Copy your daughter's Chinese name several times then cut and taped it to her camera, along with a few tiny photos of her, just to ensure the SWI workers knew whose camera it was.

PICTURE ALBUM

Put family photos including hers in a "Who Loves Baby" album. One family sent a set of plastic rings with laminated photos of them & extended family with the hopes that maybe she'll get used to our faces. If you can label the photos in Chinese that would be great too. Below is a site you can use to print simple phrase/words to use in labeling your camera, album (if choose to do this), etc. There are others. Just print, cut out the Chinese characters and tape them on your items (http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/index.html#Contents)
NANNY & DIRECTOR GIFTS

Sent some small candies to the Nannies. Good choice are Hershey's and M&M's since these are well known American Chocolates. *assortment of Revlon lipsticks, chapsticks, hand lotions, scented soaps, bath gels, tea bags (imported British teas) and hard candies. *For the orphanage director, maybe a men's wallet with a note thanking him for the care that my daughter was receiving and telling him the other gifts were for the nannies. sent chocolates and lotions and a framed picture of our daughter for the foster mom.

MAILING INFO

Declare $0 it is a gift. DO NOT to send packages certified or registered Do not list a camera in the contents. *I would suggest sending translated questions of your child in one of packagesUSPS air mail 3.5 lbs cost $26 You can go to Blessed Kids and print off the address for the orphanage in Chinese characters. *…had very good luck with sending packages to China just using the US postal services Global Express. One thing you can do is have the orphanage write you out a label in Chinese and send it to me via email, then just print it out every time you need it so your boxes have both English and Chinese labels on them! Also make sure that you write clearly on the box "donation/gift" so that the orphanage is not taxed on the items in the box...so far, no problems there! Only send a shoebox size package to the orphanage to avoid any hassles for the orphanage in claiming the package. Sending a care package of this size costs about $30 to ship * mail it "global". Again, list contents and value enter $0. This way, the Orphanage does not have to pay anything at their end. Also, they will accept your package! mark the package as gift/charitable donation and check off the box for 'return to sender'

ORPHANAGE INFO

*You can find the address, written in Chinese and English, on the Yahoo group for your orphanage. You can also go to Blessed Kids and printed off the address for the orphanage in Chinese characters.

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