So I reached out to a few organizations and found Desmos who was excited about our idea to bring activity care packages to kids in transit who have to spend a lot of time waiting and waiting. They had some good ideas on what to include - things I wouldn't have thought about including sun hats because even though it is late September, it's still in the mid-80s in Greece and kids are getting sunburned from being outside so much. We also included colors or colored pencils, coloring books or journals, something fun like a stuffed animal or travel game, sun hat and a set of new socks. The 0-2 bags all included one or two board books as well.
I also reached out to several families from our school and had an outpouring of support (our school rocks!). In a short amount of time we gathered up everything through donations from these families and had many volunteers come and help organize all the donations. We put together activity packages for 4 different age ranges (0-2, 2-4, 5-7 and 8-12). Some of them by gender and all labeled clearly so that these overwhelmed non-profits in Greece can hand them out easily. Pulling 51 care packages together was quite easy with all of their help.
We also included notes in each of them from one of the families who donated items - just telling the kids a little about one of our kids or families and wishing them well on their journey. Several of us were able to get our notes translated into Arabic as well in case the families aren't proficient in English.
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| 51 care packages and a lot of hardworking kids who helped organize and stuff all the bags. There were a lot of hardworking adults behind the camera, too, who made this happen. Many thanks to all who helped with this. |
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| Busy action photo of a mom and two 7th graders making sure the crayon assignments are fair! |
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| William hard at work making sure all the care packages are evenly distributed. |
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| Juliet finalizing one of the bags for the 5-7 year olds. I had ordered bags from the U.S. but unfortunately when they arrived, they were too small. Thankful for a friend who steered me to Daiso for an alternative - I know the word "Clothes" on the side isn't ideal but the size is much better than our other option. |
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| Some of our excellent care package packers. |
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| Meredith fits easily in one of the donated suitcases to take the packages to Greece. |
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| 51 care packages plus an extra bag of sun hats and socks and an extra bag of toys and crafts all fit into these five donated suitcases. We weighed the large ones to make sure they fell under the airline weight requirements. Our family will be traveling with 9 checked bags for a while. That's a LOT of bags! |
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| How we labeled all the bags. Foam tags included age range and gender (if required - many were gender neutral). One amazing mom offered to make all 50 of these foam tags (thank you, Jamie!!). We wanted something sturdier than paper or cardboard and these worked great. That was a lot of work to make them all though. |
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| Emirates Airlines employee who checked us in didn't even blink when we said we had nine bags to check! People often travel with many, many giant suitcases and boxes in and out of these airports that our over-sized luggage selection was barely even noticed. |
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| Passing off the bags to Pericles (really!) who got them to Demos. I will try to update later if we are able to get photos of the care packages being handed out. |
I was a bit of a weepy mess at church on the day we pulled all these together for the packing party. We sang The Servant Song at church that day and the words hit me hard (see below) as I think about all the families whose whole desire in taking this perilous journey is safety for their kids... but also recognizing that there certainly aren't easy solutions to all the heartbreak.
The Servant Song
(Marantha Music)
Sister, let me be your servant.
Let me be as Christ to you.
Pray that I might have the grace
To let you be my servant, too.
We are pilgrims on a journey.
We are sisters on the road.
We are here to help each other
Walk the mile and bear the load.
I will hold the Christ-light for you
In the night time of your fear.
I will hold my hand out to you;
Speak the peace you long to hear.
I will weep when you are weeping.
When you laugh, I'll laugh with you.
I will share your joy and sorrow
Till we've seen this journey through.
When we sing to God in heaven,
We shall find such harmony
Born of all we've known together
Of Christ's love and agony.
Sister, let me be your servant.
Let me be as Christ to you.
Pray that I might have the grace
To let you be my servant, too.
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