Babies Need Food Foundation

We interrupt our usual stream of Disney-related rambling and ranting to talk about, well, something really important.

My brother Al and his wife Anita have recently started a foundation to feed hungry children in Anita’s home country of India. On their website, Babies Need Food, they write:

On July 3, 2005, we gave birth to our beloved daughter, Angelina. We quickly discovered that when Angelina is hungry, her crying and desperation to eat is unbearable to listen to, even for a second. As we witnessed the intense desperation for food of our own little girl, we started thinking about all the babies in my home country of India, and how many of them go without proper nutrition during their first 2 years. Many fathers and mothers just don’t have enough money to provide an adequate nutritious diet for their babies. And many infants are left crying in their hunger.

At this point we knew we had to do something for some of the infants in India.

Yes, there are plenty of organizations working to feed the hungry, and to improve the national infrastructures of countries with high proportions of hungry people. So why am I asking you to support this one in particular? Because it’s personal. Because I see the pictures and hear the stories of my brother and his family visiting Chennai to distribute food to other families. Because it’s a small, family-run charity with zero overhead expenses. Because my nieces are growing up making regular visits to India to distribute food and clothes. Because I know there are more families asking for support than Babies Need Food can currently help.

Anita and Alan [. . .] made a personal commitment to financially support 50 mothers with infants. The supplies were purchased from vendors in India. Ministers from various congregations were requested to locate mothers and infants in need.

Well, as with most good works, the need overwhelms the resources! The day after the initial distribution to the 50 infants, 67 more mothers with infants arrived, seeking help! And the number of infants needing nutritional support continues to grow.

Please consider making a contribution of any size. It costs $8 to support one child for one month - about the same cost as a couple Dole Whip Floats! At this time that so many of us are excited about going to Walt Disney Word during the Free Dining promotion, maybe we can appreciate our own good fortune and pass along some pixie dust to another family.

If you have questions about Babies Need Food, please contact Al and Anita through email at info@babiesneedfood.org . I know they will appreciate hearing from you.

Give Kids the World . . . So Many Ways to Help!

Many times in this blog, I’ve mentioned the fabulous trip my dear son and I had to Walt Disney World in October, 2006. It was a special surprise, piggybacked onto Mr Broke Hoedown’s business trip to Orlando. We were especially lucky to win the American Wishing Tale Dream, along with my Best Friend Forever Lisa; my son still beams when he talks about it, and I cherish the Magical Moments certificate we brought home.

But I’ve never written about what our lives looked like earlier that same week. About 48 hours before this picture was taken, I was sitting in my living room removing electrodes from my son’s scalp, at the end of a 48-hour ambulatory EEG. This was his second EEG of the year (and while we didn’t know it at the time, there was one more to come). We’d also had an MRI, a CT scan, and countless visits with neurologists of various stripes over many months. This trip was more than just a regular vacation for us; it was a diversion from an endless stream of medical fears and uncertainties. For a few days, we were able to forget, and stop worrying about what the next test result might bring.

I am tremendously relieved to report that my son is fine. He has a chronic condition that will always require management, and we’re fortunate to have access to excellent health care. But some kids face much tougher odds, and they need a little magic even more than we did. So do their parents.

Give Kids the World fulfills the wishes of terminally ill children who would like to vacation with their families in Central Florida. There are a tremendous number of ways to support these efforts, ranging from direct contributions, to booking your Staybridge hotel stay through a link on their web site, to bidding on eBay auctions that donate a percentage to this important work. Please visit their site and consider how you might want to help.