GREENVILLE — Stelvideo Junior Grange 216 recently donated and delivered 233 Usborne Books and other all-new books to Dayton Children’s Hospital.
All seven juniors — Joey and Calen Clopp, Moxon and Haddie Gilpin, Jaden and Dessie Wolf and Madelyn Dillon — went along with Darke County Junior Deputy Lynne Hinshaw, Junior Leader Susan Gunckle and junior parents, Holly and Tim Clopp, Ashley Gilpin, Heidi Wolf and Sarah Loxley….all in three vehicles.
Children’s takes the book cart and a snack cart around every afternoon of every day as long as there are enough books. They take the cart to all of the regular rooms plus NICU, plus cancer unit and same-day surgery. There are 178 beds when full.
Kelly Wills, director of volunteer resources at Dayton Children’s, took the local group of Grangers down to where the book closet is on the lower floor of the hospital and showed it to them and told them how they like to have it full of fun books for all age groups. The Juniors were also shown the book cart.
Wills reported that all children at the hospital can take a book and keep it, and if they have siblings who are there visiting, they can get a book as well and keep it.
The Juniors picked out two books each to purchase for the patients.
They were asked their thoughts on doing the book donations. Responses were:
Madelyn liked all the different books and she said it made her feel good to give them.
Haddie said it made her feel great and happy to give the books away.
Her brother, Moxon, remarked, “I liked to be at the hospital and helping other kids.”
Dessie said it made her happy to know that the books would brighten a child’s day.
Jaden remarked that it made him feel good to help make children happy.
“My favorite part was when we got to the hospital,” Joey said. “I was really excited to donate the books. I’m glad we could do something to make their day better.”
“It made me happy to the books to the kids in the hospital,” said Calen.
The Juniors recently had an Usborne Books Party For A Purpose and they sold more than $1,200 worth of books, plus more than $600 worth of books for free, all to give to Dayton Children’s Hospital to their library cart.
Books needed range from baby to teenagers with some chapter books for middle school and other teens.
Some people donated other books, including coloring books and some Big Chapter books from Amazon.
“We had a nice big variety,” said Hinshaw, ““This is a nice lesson for our Juniors to learn that Grange is more than meetings, making crafts and going to the county fair and putting up the booth. Giving to others makes a difference.”
Afterwards, they went to Marion’s Pizza in Englewood, thanks to money donated by State Grange.
“We’re going to do it again next year, hopefully,” Gunckle said.
She said she got the idea after she became acquainted with Wills through mutual friends and learned of her job at the hospital.
”I came up with the idea in September,” Gunckle said.
Her favorite part was “seeing the kids work hard collecdting books and to see their faces when they got to see the books.”
Stelvideo Juniors, along with Stelvideo Grange just recently bought, put labels in, and sent a letter home with all the students and donated dictionaries to all Arcanum thired-graders.
“Our Grange feels blessed and honored to be able to do these two big community service projects,” Hinshaw said. “We’d like to thank everyone who has helped in these projects.”
