2014/2015 Book Drive

I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long to get this post up. We just finished delivering our last set of books last week so now I will do a recap of all the deliveries for you all.

On January 29th 100 Books were delivered to Preston Idaho Hospital by my sweet sister in law and her boys. My nephew Kaleb helped get the books ready to deliver.

On January 30th we were able to deliver 207 Books to Portnuef Medical in Pocatello Idaho. We had an amazing reception there from many of the nurses we grew to love as they cared for our Gabie. We were also able to deliver books to 2 sweet little babies while we were at the Hospital.

On February 2nd we delivered 150 Books to American Fork Hospital.

On February 18th we delivered 123 Books to Timpanogos Regional Hospital.

On February 20th we delivered 124 Books to Utah Valley Regional Hospital.

And on March 2nd we delivered 125 Books for Riverton Primary Children’s Wing.

For our 2014/2015 Books From Gabriel Book Drive we donated 829 Books to 6 Hospitals. This was all made possible my all the wonderful people who helped us along the way by donating funds and so many books. We can’t thank you enough!!

To add a little story to this year’s book drive I’d like to tell you about Clayton. Clayton is my nephew and he and Gabe are buddies. When Gabie was here they were always buddies. They are only a few months apart in age, Clayton being a bit older. Clayton was born with Mowat Wilson’s Syndrome, a very rare Syndrome that has made his life more difficult than most little boys. He’s had several surgeries throughout his 6 years and he is always keeping his mom and dad on their toes.

This last week Clayton had a very large seizure. Seizure's are not uncommon for Clayton but this one was larger than most. He and his mom were Life Flighted from the Preston Hospital to the Portnuef Medical Center in Pocatello. Clayton was there for several days while he received the treatment he needed. During his stay he was getting a bit restless and bored one day and his mom asked his nurse if they had anything he could play with. She returned with a few toys and a book. She then proceeded to tell Stacy that a very sweet family donates books every year in memory of their son who passed away specifically for the patients. Stacy cried, when she composed herself she told the nurse (who didn’t know us and wasn’t one of Gabie’s nurses) that she was that little boy’s Aunt. The nurse said oh well then maybe you don’t want the book (I think maybe she was unsure how to react to Stacy’s comment). Stacy then said no we’d really like to keep that book. It is a book from Gabriel and Gabriel and Clayton are buddies. Clayton enjoyed the book throughout his stay. When Stacy sent me a photo of the book I saw something else interesting. The book that was given to Clayton was a book I specifically remember labeling. It was a book mailed to us from Gabriel’s Heart Recipient’s Great Grandma. So in my mind that book came from both Gabriel and Jack(Gabie’s Heart Recipient).

This story is especially tender to our family but these are the kind of stories we’d love to hear from anyone who has ever received a Book From Gabriel during their stay at the Hospital.