Pack
Leader ::
Melanie Barton Zoltán
Leading the Pack by following her heart's call: When
Melanie is packing up a large box full of
cloth diapers, covers, sheets and warm blankets she often
visualizes these on the kids. She imagines the kitchen
staff being thrilled with the stockpots and tea kettles
. . . she
imagines how hard the staff must work to clothe 120 kids with
one washer and NO DRYER. And that's just one orphanage -
there are 24,000 orphans in the Ukrainian system right now.
How hard it must be - and how safe and warm and comfortable
she is. How lucky her kids are and how, for some reason,
she is called to this effort.
Where a 'search' will lead you. It all started
with Google. Melanie Barton Zoltán
was browsing on the Internet, trying to learn more about where
her new brother-in-law is from, Ukraine. She found a
number of websites that showed US-Ukrainian adoptions . . .
first person accounts from the adoptive parents. They
described 15 lb. two year olds, babies who wouldn't make eye
contact until they had been fed an 8 ounce bottle of formula
and ad hoc "diapers" made from old kitchen towels and a pair
of worn tights. Melanie saw before her what her
brother-in-law, Misha, had tried to describe - the impact of
economic devastation in his beloved home country.
One of the links Google took her to was
Karing for Kramatosk. This website was started
by a woman named Della Curley, an adoptive mother who brought
her son from Ukraine and launched an effort to help the
orphanages. She had a link to
The Baby Marketplace, a baby products store run by
Canadian, Kim Becker. On Kim's site there was a picture
of little toddlers, heads shaved to prevent lice, sitting in
little enamel bowls.
Baby Marketplace explained that the children, from 12
months and on, were made to sit in the bowls after meals until
they "produced," and were denied liquids between meals,
because there were not enough diapers (cloth or disposable) for
them. The staff were too overworked to handle the many
toileting mistakes that would come from giving the children
fluids. Melanie could not get this thought out of her
head. She cradled her 11 month old in her lap - he'd
fallen asleep at her breast - and tears dropped on his face.
She thought about how these Ukrainian babies had never had the
privilege to fall asleep at their mother's breast. She
couldn't give them that, but she could give them something.
"They didn't even have diapers!" The Baby
Marketplace had a donation section, where you could buy
Chinese Prefolds and diaper covers at cost to be shipped to
Ukraine. Melanie bought five of each and donated $20 to
the effort on the spot.
That started an effort that continues on seven months
later. Melanie immediately packed up three huge boxes
full of cloth diapers, clothes, formula samples, towels,
blankets, etc. . . and sent those off to Anita Paradis,
webmaster for
Mom2Many,
a Canadian site for parenting multiples. Melanie thought
she was done, but she could not get the image of those little
babies sitting on chamber pots out of her head.
A month later, Melanie received an email from Anita
thanking her for sending the supplies. An email
relationship began and soon, Melanie was part of an email list
for
www.abrah.org, a group of mothers from Canada, Israel,
USA, and Italy, who were working to send needed supplies to
Ukraine. Kim Becker from The Baby Marketplace also
started a food program. Anita asked Melanie to help with
a new orphanage in Kherson, near the Black Sea. There
were 120 children in the orphanage in Kherson.
"I kept thinking about this orphanage.
Anita told me
that the translator who works for the orphanage,
Julia, said the orphanage was having a bedding crisis.
With one washer and no dryer, the winter had been
awful, and they'd been unable to provide dry bedding
for the children."
The Summer of 2003 Melanie's efforts evolved.
First, Melanie started shopping at thrift and consignment
shops, stretching her personal budget to find the most needed
items at reasonable prices. She also sent seven ball pits with
balls (on sale at Amazon) to Kramatorsk, to help children with
sensory stimulation in the orphanages. Many of the
children are misdiagnosed as learning disabled or mentally
retarded, when in fact it is just a lack of stimulation
causing the developmental delays. The orphanage in
Kramatorsk, called Anotshka, asked for such occupational
therapy items to help the children.
"In America we think of kids as *over*stimulated!
Yet
something as simple as a ball pit could make
a difference for
these kids."
Now, seven months later, the mothers of the Abrah.org have
made tremendous progress. Lynn Kolber, a mother in
Israel, solicited a donation of 99 toys from Little Tykes -
ranging from small toys to larger cottages and riding toys.
Tereson of
Mother
of Eden has donated more than 400 diapers and Fuzzi Bunz,
BabyNMore
donated 480 Chinese Prefolds,
PunkinButt
donated over 100 diapers,
Bummis
donated 828 covers and other business donations have included
Faerypatch,
Kelly's
Closet and
MegaBloks.
Kim Becker's food program is up and running, and through
financial donations, the first shipment of 240 cans of formula
was able to be sent last month to two different orphanages.
With continued financial support she is hoping to do this
every 4 to 6 weeks.
How far $5.00 can stretch. The babies, on
average, get only 10 ounces of formula each day - the rest is
sugar water and mashed potatoes (this starting at the very
young age of 4 months). The babies do get some fresh
milk and vitamin drops if available. Through the formula
program, the babies will get an additional 10+ ounces a day -
only $5.00 can feed a baby for a month. Melanie thinks
about this a LOT when she's buying a latte and a muffin--what
better use could that $5 do?
Answering the call with generosity. The
mothers at
Mothering.com's discussion boards have been fruitful
following Melanie's request for about 80 infant Chinese
Prefolds. Melanie received more than 1000 Chinese
Prefolds, 100 plus blankets, countless amounts of clothes and
other assorted items. Many have sent small to large
donations directly to Melanie, or even sent boxes of their own
weighing 30 lbs. or more directly to the shipping warehouse in
Portland, OR (which are then sent to Ukraine).
"Many of the mothers were profoundly affected
by a
picture
on Kim's website - it showed Pampers that had
been washed
and were hanging to dry to be re-used. I
can't tell you how many
cloth diapering mothers sent me
diapers and told me that was just such a horrible sight - that
they were that desperate and in need to that degree."
| Placing personal emotional and financial limits
to her call.
The hardest part about the effort for Melanie is
placing limits involving it. Melanie gets very emotional
thinking about these babies.
"They are malnourished. They don't
have diapers. The average heat indoors in the winter
is 55 degrees, because the government pays for the heat,
but won't set it higher. For the older ones, there are
few toys. They cannot go outside because they have no
winter coats, snow pants, or shoes. They do get personal attention
from the caregivers, but without the BASIC material items,
how can the caregivers
give them their best?" |
 |
When Melanie is packing up a large box full of
cloth diapers, covers, sheets and warm blankets she often
visualizes these on the kids. She imagines the kitchen
staff being thrilled with the stockpots and tea kettles
(requested by the director) for use in sterilizing bottles and
boiling diapers (they boil diapers to sterilize them - rarely
do they have hot water in the washing machines). She
imagines how hard the staff must work to clothe 120 kids with
one washer and NO DRYER. And that's just one orphanage -
there are 24,000 orphans in the Ukrainian system right now.
How hard it must be - and how safe and warm and comfortable
she is. How lucky her kids are and how, for some reason,
she is called to this effort.
Since the start of this effort, Melanie has sent over
700 lbs of humanitarian aid to the orphanages. There
are four orphanages in the Abrah effort - helping a
total of 420 children. The cost to ship these items
to Ukraine is a stumbling bock- it costs, on average,
$1-1.25 per lb. Many items cannot be found in
Ukraine- a simple baby blanket costs $7-9 in Ukraine, as linens are extremely expensive there. Bear in mind
the average worker earns $35-50 per month. Imagine
spending 15-20% of your monthly income just to buy a
baby blanket.
More is needed.
Melanie continues to put out the call for more
donations--she's currently collecting cold weather
clothes, shoes/boots, coats/snowsuits, blankets, crib
sheets, and Chinese Prefolds and covers. Monetary donations are
important too, to keep the food program going. If
you are interested in helping, please email Melanie at
melanie@zoltan.org.
To donate money, please follow this direct link to the "Aid to
Orphans" page at
The Baby Marketplace.
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