The Manchester Enterprise
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Kiwanis Club holding 'baby shower'
Donated items to benefit C.S. Mott Children's Hospital in Ann Arbor
By Alana West, Special Writer
PUBLISHED: April 12, 2007
Every year, Joan VanArsdalen, Kiwanis' first lady of the Michigan District, chooses a project for local chapters of the club to promote. This year, she requested that they sponsor a "baby shower" for one of four children's hospitals in Michigan.
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Manchester Kiwanis Club members chose C.S. Mott Children's Hospital in Ann Arbor, said Dianne Schwab, past president of the local club. Donated items will be offered as a "shower gift." The event will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. May 19, at the Nellie Ackerson Building. The public is invited to attend.
"They asked somebody to chair this event locally, and I said I would do it," said Sidney Palmer of Manchester.
Palmer also encouraged students in the Builder's Club at Manchester Middle School and the high school's Key Club to participate in the project. Both clubs are supported by Kiwanis.
Builder's Club President Kyle Oberlieter and Project Chairwoman Betsy Harrison, along with other club members, recently finished their student-to-student outreach, in which they asked other kids in the school to donate items for the project.
"Each class brought in (items) and the class with the most will have pizza and ice cream for lunch," Palmer said.
The Key Club just began its own campaign, with plans to end it shortly before the shower event.
The Kiwanis Club chose as its shower gift to provide comforting activities to children spending long days and sometimes months at the hospital.
Items needed include art, knitting and craft supplies, school supplies, books, disposable cameras, movies, CDs and CD players, computer games, board games, stuffed animals and toys.
"Pretty much anything that can entertain kids while they are there," Palmer said.
All items should be placed in one of the green boxes located at the Manchester Public Library, Kleinschmidt's Hardware Store, Elements Gallery, Worth Repeating, the Coffee Mill and the Manchester Market. Wish-list items also are posted at each of the sites. Items must be new, and not wrapped as gifts.
"We are trying not to focus on (items for) babies," Palmer said. "Mott hospital doesn't have any trouble getting donations for babies."
Palmer suggested that items for older children and teens were among those most sought.
"They have a school (at the hospital), since kids spend so much of their time there," Palmer said. "Part of the school is funded by the Kiwanis Club."
Schwab said Kiwanis helps the Child and Family Life staff at Mott decrease the trauma of hospitalization for children and families by providing activities that mirror the routine of daily life as much as possible.
"The services offered are teaching, developmental play, medical play and intervention, art and music therapy and computer technology," she said.
Mott hospital treated 3863 children from Washtenaw County as inpatients, with 32,861 total outpatients for the year 2005.
This is Palmer's third project with the Kiwanis Club, since recently moving to the area from Arizona.
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