Sweet Christmas Hope

What is Hope? Hope is a belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one's life. All of the project leaders with Project Sweet Peas have hope. They all believe that the circumstances in their lives will lead to positive outcomes. Some spend countless hours sitting at the bedside of their newborn, some cheered after a gram was gained, some never knew their babies past pregnancy, and some, will never know their children beyond the precious moments frozen in their memories forever. No matter what the circumstance that lead us to find each other, we all have lost one thing, normalcy, the normalcy of pregnancy, child birth and having a newborn. While we all have lost, we all have gained one thing also, hope. We believe that all of the events in our lives, no matter how tragic, will have a positive outcome. Project Sweet Peas helps offer families hope. Through giving and receiving, we give hope in knowing, they are not alone.

It is hard to have hope while your baby is in the NICU, or has just died, but, more so when it is the holiday season. While we strive to try to bring comfort to families year round, we wanted to give them more this season: hope. This Christmas, we delivered 385 teddy bears, Santa hats, stockings, snowmen, Ornaments, name tags, blankets and so much more to NICU’s. We provided over 100 care packages in the month of December.

Project leader, Megan Skaggs, who delivers to Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas, was so thankful to have her family with her as the Social worker went straight up to the NICU to give the babies the teddy bears she delivered. Project Leader, Theresa Wellman, who delivers to Comer Children's Hospital at the University of Chicago, could only say her delivery was “absolutely amazing and fulfilling”. The staff was so thankful for her delivery because the parents were so grateful for their gifts. Project Leader, Kate Crawford, who delivers to Magee-Women's and Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh, was able to deliver on her son’s one year anniversary of being discharged from the NICU on December 23rd, which was such a special experience for her.

As always, we thank you for your continued support. Without you, we would not be able to bring hope to so many families.