Gifts for kids at Society Rehabilitation Center „Mēs esam līdzās” (We are beside you)

I have a friend from church who is a single mom of 5. She works really hard and has a good heart. She works at this school for kids with disabilities. There are only maybe 2 schools for kids with disabilities in Latvia. The school is run by a non profit organization. My friend Elena was really concerned about the kids getting Christmas presents. They have a program at the end of the year and wanted to give present to the kids but didn't have the money. So she asked if the church would be able to, but since most people are not very well off at church, I thought I would see if anyone at the Embassy would like to contribute to getting Christmas presents for these kids. It was not hard at all to get contributions. Everyone was so generous. Since these kids are handicapped, I didn't know what kinds of presents to get them. So we decided on books. The kids she worked with were from 3-6 years old. They also have an older group of kids. I asked if anyone had stuffed animals they would want to donate and of course I got a ton. We also got a ton of money. So we were able to give the kids a bag with a book, stuffed animal, I had to get some kind of toy, so we got matchbox cars or planes for the boys and hair accessories for the girls. We had money left over so we purchased art supplies: paint, paint brushes and paper. It was really fun to get everything together. I visited the school once and was very impressed with the facility. The director: Andra, was very nice, spoke English very well and she took me on a tour of the school. She talked to me about the children and how when they came, it seemed like they had little hope, but with the work that they do with them, the teachers that work with the kids, they were very amazed at how much progress they make.

There is one boy that attends the school who is an orphan. He has a very rare disease where he can not sit up at all. He has to lie down all the time. He can only use his head. I met him and he even spoke a little english. He was very intelligent.

We arranged to bring the gifts on the day of their Christmas program. I didn't want to just come in and bring these gifts and then leave. I would have felt stupid. So at the last minute I thought I would be sooooo awesome for the kids if Santa brought all the stuff. So I called the director and she said that would be sooooo great. Luckily the Embassy had a Santa suit and Kelly had taken that day off of work anyway. So we had some friends watch the kids and we took off to the school with Santa and presents.

When we arrived the kids had just started the Christmas program. It was really adorable. They sang some really cute songs, did a little skit and had some graduates of the program performed. One girl sang "The hills are Alive" It was really good. Then they introduced Santa who spoke Latvian with a Finish accent, since he is from Lapland. All the kids were really excited. He handed out the gifts. It was really fun. One of the students who already graduated really wanted to help Santa out. He was Santa's helper. He is "mentally disabled" and sits in a wheel chair. Really nice kid. The sad thing is, he is done with school and has nothing to do with himself. He lives with his parents, but can't get a job or do anything. So he has nothing to look forward to. Really sad. The director says he comes to the school a lot to help out. I never really thought about it before, but America has such great opportunities for handicap people to be able to work. It's so sad here, they have no future. Hopefully it will get better.

The gifts were passed out with the help of Santa's helper. I only wish we had divided the gifts better since there were more kids than students and of course they all wanted something from Santa, but it worked out and everyone was happy. Poor Santa couldn't see very well at all. He was wearing his glasses since before we left Lincoln said Kelly needed to wear glasses since Santa has glasses. So he wore his glasses and he was really really hot, his hair was all over the place, his hat kept falling off and his glasses were fogging up. But it didn't matter, everyone loved him. They invited us to have snacks with them afterward. We couldn't stay long since we had to get back to the kids, it was very nice.

The director was really nice, I think I will take the kids with me sometime and just play with the kids. She said the kids don't get very much interaction with healthy kids. I think it would be great for my kids to help them. I told Lincoln we were going to go there and talked to him about the kids and how their bodies don't work like ours. And he said when he gets there he wants to run around really fast and move his arms really fast so the kids can see how to do it. We will have to work on that, hopefully we can go back soon.