Utah Valley Regional Medical Center

On the 20th we did our last book delivery for this year. (we will have one more delivery to PCMC but it’s just the remaining 618 books we’ve been storing for them) We took 400 books to UVR in Orem. That hospital is quite huge and harder to find your way around than PCMC. We drove all the way around it once to find the correct entrance. Then we parked at the Valet Parking desk and waited for Tammy to bring out a cart. We loaded the books up and took them inside to get a photo. Tammy is the contact I had arranged the book donation with and she was very excited about our donation. We’ve had such a wonderful experience this year with the book drive and can’t wait to see what we can accomplish next year.

Preston, Logan & Primary Children’s Medical Center

So this week my sister in law delivered 100 books to Preston hospital and 100 books to Logan Hospital. Below is what Stacy said about the deliveries…

Stacy Egley “Dropped (my nephews) "books from Gabe" off at the Logan hospital! They were very grateful for them! Thanks Amy for the opportunity to do this. Helps with the healing! Love you and miss you Gabe!!!!”

“Got the Preston ones dropped off today! No pictures they wouldn't let me in the unit cuz I had my kids with me. So I just told the people in charge Gabe’s story and the reason for the books and what we would like to see them do with them. They were very grateful! And gave us there thanks and sympathy.”

Thank you Sis for delivering those books!! We’re so happy to have been able to spread Gabe’s books so far and wide.

Today David the Kids and I went to Primary Children’s Medical Center to deliver their 1st delivery of books. They are willing to take the remaining books but asked if we would bring them in at least 2 different loads so that they have and easier time getting them to all the places they want to get them to. Marie seems impressed with the quality of books she said we’d set a high standard. I want to thank all my awesome friends who donated such great books. She was going to have the Education Director and the Librarian help her place the books where they would be best used.

Marie gave each of the kids a PCMC pencil and she printed out a picture right then and put it on a card that says Primary Children’s Medical Center Foundation on the front and on the back is a quote…

“Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves”
-James Barrie (he wrote Peter Pan)

I was so happy to meet Marie, she was very sweet and gave us a little tour of some of the awesome pictures down the hallway that have been painted by children patients. David and I both thought she reminded us of David’s Aunt Colleen which if you do not know Aunt Colleen it is a wonderful compliment.

Today we delivered 525 books to PCMC and Marie said to call her in a month to bring the other 628 books. That will be a total of 1,153 books delivered to PCMC. We really couldn’t be happier to do this project and it has blessed our lives so very much. Thank you again for all your support!

In 10 days we have an appointment to deliver 400 books to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center. That will be the last of this years books. I’ll for sure do a post when we make that delivery as well.

After our delivery we took the kids out to dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory. They were pretty good and enjoyed being out at a new place to them. It’s funny to watch them when we go downtown it’s such a new and big experience since we’re from little Pocatello, Salt Lake seems so huge and different to them. I Love their excitement, except when Isaac is so happy he darts in front of a car in the parking garage and gives me heart failure. Thank goodness I was watching him and stopped him before he ran right in front of it and the car was paying attention to him as well.

American Fork Hospital

Today we delivered 300 books to the American Fork Hospital. Sharon Harris met us at the door and accepted the books from us. She had me fill out a Volunteer Hours form. I left the amount of hours blank because who really can keep track of the time me, my family and friends and all of you have put into making this project such a success. I really can’t take credit for all of it. After I gave her the form she marked down 50 hours and gave me my copy.

Sharon said the Hospital was very excited about the donation! One of the ways they were planning to use the books was in The Huntsman-Intermountain Cancer Center at their location. She said there are so many children and youth that come in for IV Therapy. The books will offer a distraction for many of those children.

I was excited to hear about this use of the donated books!

Over 200 of our books were donated by a very good friend of mine from Oklahoma. This friend of mine is the mother to Amazing Gracie. Gracie at just 3 years old was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma in March of 2010. Gracie received clean scans in June of 2011 after a difficult battle. Gracie & her family are such an amazing examples to me and many others. Gracie’s sweet mom has offered so many words of comfort to me, even though she herself has been dealing with her own grief in watching her beautiful little girl fight such a difficult battle. I have truly grown to love this family for their support and great example to me. I am so excited & honored that our book drive will be able to help entertain more children who are fighting their way through cancer like Gracie has.

Excited!

Today I have finalized two more book deliveries. We will be delivering 300 books to American Fork Hospital on Friday the 3rd. Then we will delivering 500 books to Primary Children’s Medical Center on Friday the 10th. They have agreed to take 500 now and then another 500 when they start to run low. I can’t wait to get these books delivered. Hopefully next week I’ll here from Utah Valley Regional Medical Center and be able to take them a few hundred books. With PCMC and American Fork books delivered and set aside we will have 700 books left to donate!