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April Harman's dad always tells her: If you can dream it, you can make it happen. Now, April is following that advice to help survivors of the tsunami in South Asia. At last count, she was 12,320 stuffed animals closer to turning her dream into a reality. "I got an idea of what I wanted to do after seeing pictures on the news of a little girl holding a dirty Barbie doll and standing beside a stuffed animal that was squished in the mud," says April, 15, a United Methodist in Woodstock, Ill. "I knew I wanted to do something for the children." That led her to initiate a toy drive she calls Operation Huggable Friends. By the end of March, she expects to have 14,000 stuffed animals ready to send to the region where 35,000 children are estimated to have lost one or both parents in the Dec. 26 disaster. Stuffed animals can be important tools in the emotional recovery of traumatized youngsters, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics Work Group on Disasters. They promote feelings of security and stimulate imaginative play that helps children work through their fears, the doctors say. April doesn't need a scientific reason for her initiative. She simply feels it is the right thing to do. "Some of the children have just lost everything," April says. "A lot of times, when a child has a stuffed animal, they can talk to it, even if they can't talk to an adult. It is part of the healing process to let out our emotions so they don't get locked up inside. A stuffed animal is also something to hold on to." April, who is home-schooled, first sought support for her project from her mother, Janet, and dad, Harry Harman. "I've been involved in the Boy Scouts," Harry Harman says, "and one of the things we try to teach kids is that anything you can conceive of doing you can probably get done, as long as you have the resources. So even though I felt her idea was a little ambitious, we sat down and came up with a game plan." Part one of the plan was to get the message out to the community. April, along with friends and members of her Venture Crew, a co-ed high school division of Boy Scouts of America, began distributing fliers and setting out collection boxes in public locations. "We got the information out, and the response was slow at first. Then it really took off," says Belinda Gonzalez, a junior at Woodstock High School and a member of Venture Crew 159, which meets at First United Methodist Church in Woodstock. The fliers went out Jan. 15, and by early March, more than 12,000 stuffed animals had been collected. April also called on her friend and former pastor, the Rev. Lana Thompson Sutton, now on staff at the Wheatland-Salem United Methodist Church near Naperville, Ill. "I told her I think her idea is neat, and I encouraged her to call on area schools, which might have a heart for collecting little huggable friends," Sutton says. The church set out boxes for the stuffed animals as well, so children and youth attending Wheatland-Salem could make donations during the season of Lent. "In about two weeks, we had three big boxes collected," Sutton says. Phase two of April's game plan involves sorting and packing the toys, which are kept in a donated storage bin near her home. "We look over every stuffed animal that we get to make sure it is in good condition, as like-new as possible," April says. April, Belinda and about a dozen other volunteers then pack the toys in large plastic bags, with 25 animals per bag. "We're doing that so they won't get too heavy to carry," April explains. "If a doctor or relief worker was going into a distant area, he could just throw a bag in his truck. It doesn't take up a lot of space." Getting the toys to the stricken areas and distributing them are phases three and four of the plan. The Harmans had counted on a military transport program that allows civilians to take advantage of unused areas in cargo planes. However, that program has been suspended due to the high volume of military aid heading to tsunami victims, Harry Harman says. Operation Huggable Friends is seeking another way to transport the stuffed animals, perhaps through sponsorship by a commercial carrier, he adds. Meanwhile, the Harmans are contacting embassies in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and other affected areas, as well as looking into church-related missions for a way to distribute the toys once they arrive. The task is too important not to finish, Harry Harman says. "Over there, you have tens of thousands of traumatized children who have lost family members, classmates, playmates-people they would normally turn to when they are hurting," he says. "No one can deny the value of a stuffed animal in the hands of a traumatized child." More information about Operation Huggable Friends can be found at http://www.operationhuggablefriends.org/. |
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