Staggering Statistic

"According to the National Center for Education Statistics, nearly two-thirds of low-income American families do not own any books for their children. Limited access to books is a problem for all young children, but for those in low-income areas, it may be tantamount to reading failure."


I heard this report sometime a few months ago on the news. The first thing I thought of was Noelani's birth sisters (I am not sure if that is what I refer to them as - anyone in the adoption world know the proper "term")? Noelani has 3 of them. All are 10 and under. In fact, one is a mere 11 months older than her. 


Something has me feeling a bit uneasy today. While I am VERY fortunate to be able to provide a nice life for Noelani, I feel sad that not every kid can grow up saying this. Some kids may never know what it is like to even have the simple things in life like a book. That really upsets me! 


I don't want to just assume Noelani's birth family cannot afford books, but I will make it very clear that from what I know of them, I believe they would be struggling to use their money in other ways. This does NOT make them bad people - it just shows that unfortunately, many families have to make decisions like this every.single.day. A lot of single moms fight to figure out where they will get money to feed their babies their next meal. I am fortunate to say that we have never had to do that.


WITH that being said, I have decided that Noelani and I will be making a trip to the store this weekend. I finished - ok I can't promise that I finished - but did a lot of shopping for Noelani today. I felt a bit sad bringing in all of these princess toys and dolls today. I felt like - what can I do for anyone else?


Noelani and I will be doing what I know is going to help her birth family. We will go shopping for books and mail them to her sisters. We don't get a response to our packages - but we will send them anyway! That's the beauty of "Santa Clause"......the girls won't have to know who they are from, but we will know we sent them.


I'd like to do something like this each year, but not sure if we will stick with this same theme or not. I plan to involve Noelani in this venture, and though she won't understand it now - she will some day. I hope that in a few years she will maybe even come up with some ideas of things to send to them.


PS....Tammy Wondra, if you are reading this...OR Michelle.....I haven't forgotten about Hannah....we are going to be getting that package out too :)