Did your Mom Read to you at Bedtime?

My mom read to me, my sister and my two brothers every night at bedtime.  Did yours? What do you remember?

I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been asked if parents can attend our reading sessions so they can learn how to read to their child. It never occurred to me that a mom or dad needs to “learn how to read to their child.” But I know now that so many do.

Many of the children we meet are being reunited with their mom or dad who have been through periods of incarceration or drug rehab.  Part of a healthy reunion process is creating some bonding time between these parents and their children. For some there is no bond yet and reading together is the first step.

Bedtime reading is more special than we know when we are a child. We think it’s fun and there’s something that feels good about it. We realize as adults that the “good” feeling was safety,  trust, security, comfort and unconditional love all rolled into one story coming through one voice. The last thoughts in our minds before we fell asleep were of that story, those characters and the tenderness of the reading. It all made for a very precious and lifelong bond.

I no longer take for granted my mother’s voice at my bedside when I was little…I remember her story about a candy striper (who I wanted to become one day) and a man who lived in a snickers bar. I slept well. I felt loved. I was safe. Thanks mom!

 

 

 

It’s Summertime..bring on the Winter Pajamas!

It’s a warm July day and we’ve just had the hottest, muggiest weekend in a long time in the NYC area. Like millions of people everywhere, I was at the beach…trying to stay cool and hydrated while thinking of….winter pajamas! I reminded myself of the cold, hard facts several times as I pulled my sunhat over my eyes, “we need more pajamas and books for “Danger Season” because we have committed to more children this year,”  500,00 children to be exact.  Our new Oct 1st Bowl-a-Ramas  for Pajamas will help but will we have enough?

Next question in between dips in the cold water …”How can we get more big sizes for the teenagers this year?” A special fundraiser, maybe … or campaign … more “Asks?” How much can we “ask?” But we can never ask enough for these Big Kids as we refer to them – the tweens and teens who start at age 11 or 12 yrs old and often need adult sizes. As you can imagine most of the PJ drives bring us smaller sizes – and we can never have enough of these – but we are always so desperate for sizes 12 and into adults S,M, L and XL. These are the children all too often forgotten when boxes arrive at their group homes and shelters with nothing but small sizes. If you happen to see their eyes when they realize there’s nothing in there for them it will tear you up – scar your heart forever.

So, it was  ice coffee and water for the body and warm pajamas on the brain for me this past weekend! And when I got home the first thing I did was get a glass of water and put on my pajamas … and I  stayed in all evening thinking of…yes, more Pajamas!

 

 

Boy on the Moon…in PJs

Sometimes a photo of one of our children in their new pajamas stops me in my tracks…they are all beautiful and vulnerable and I want to scoop them all up in my arms and hug them until they wiggle free. But today was a bit different. I felt a shiver slowly move up my spine when the photo below opened on my screen.
The photo was attached to an email thanking us for pajamas we sent to an orphanage in Lesotho, Africa. Once in a while we are able to share a few pajamas overseas when someone we know from the US is going on a mission trip. Here’s what Belinda wrote:

“I just returned from Lesotho and wanted to pass on a huge THANKS from the kids!  We distributed the PJ’s to needy children in various villages which surround Mohale Clinic, located in the central highlands of Lesotho. Most of the kids who received PJ’s are either orphans, HIV-positive, or live with a family member who is infected. They truly appreciated the warm clothes to sleep in since it’s been a brutal winter this year.”

When I looked at this photo it looked like this little boy was standing  so far, far away… he looked to me like he was standing on the moon, in fact. Lesothos is indeed so very far away and standing there alone like he is, he felt so out of reach for me.  How could this innocent little boy not have such a simple thing as pajamas? But I ask myself that everyday about children right here in the U.S.  They just don’t.

Leaving home

Our Pajama Program Reading Center in NYC is a sacred place to us for the children. So many children who have come through our doors have been lonely and afraid for a long time. They have felt the most dreaded feeling you could ever imagine – unwanted.  Some have desperately wished they were invisible and prayed so hard for the pain to go away. I cannot fathom that feeling. I cannot begin to know how a little boy gets through the moments when a stranger takes him out of his house because his mother is burning him and his baby sister.  He asks us for pajamas for his sister and tells us she is in ICU. Does he even know what ICU stands for?

I vowed to make this a place that gives the children a respite from their pain,  a friendly home where they would know joy, even just for a little while.   Our loving supporters and partners filled this space with wonder and beauty and enchantment.  A place children don’t want to leave, a place where they feel like they belong.

Somehow we managed to create an incredible feeling in these four walls  – and not just for the kids but for all the adults who come here too.   Once you walk in the door there’s an overwhelming sensation that this is where you want to stay.  You feel warm all over.  It’s a place where children immediately sense pure joy, their faces light up and they feel love, lots of love. They squeal with delight when they see their favorite characters on the wall, almost life-like enough to jump out of the enormous mural. After their reading time they are rounded up to wait for their name to be called to get their special packages of  new pajamas and books chosen for each one of them.  You can feel the tingling running through their little bodies.  I’ve heard their squeals thousands of time but still today they go right to my heart and make it skip a beat.

Now, six years since we first opened our doors, we are busting at the seams as they say. More children than we can currently accommodate are on a wait list to participate in readings  here. It’s time to leave this home behind,  find a bigger space, and make our next Pajama Program Reading Center in NYC  just as magical, maybe even more so. This has become my true home and it’s tearing me apart to leave, but I know it’s time. It’s time to invite more children in, it’s time to give them a hug, a book, a pair of new, warm pajamas and a chance to see that there’s a beautiful place just for them when they open the door.  It’s time.

You never know whose life will change

Everyday we go through our routines expecting the usual activities  to unfold. Once in a while we are surprised by something we hear…by something someone tells us. They say you never know when your life touches another and changes it.  That happened  yesterday when I received an email from someone who volunteered with Pajama Program some time ago…

“I don’t know if you will remember me, I used to volunteer in the evenings a couple years ago with the PJ program My work inspired me to begin the process of making a career change from finance to working with children in need. When I was working I was spending my days stressing over spreadsheets and trying to impress my peers and bosses, and would volunteer in the evenings and find myself staring into the eyes of a little person that had no idea where they would sleep that night or if they would ever be able to go home again.  It absolutely made me realize that I need to find a way to do something, somehow, someway to help out.  I’m still figuring out the details of what my next step in life will be – but I credit the time that your organization allowed me to spend with these children for helping me to understand that there is another more meaningful and fulfilling path for me.

I am now a mom and am staying at home with my son while taking classes and preparing to apply to graduate school.  I can not volunteer in the evenings  but I was wondering if you could add me to the email list in case there are other volunteer opportunities where I might be of help during the days?
I hope you are well and I thank you for all your work for the Pajama Program – helping the children and indirectly providing an opportunity for me to find my true calling.
Kind regards,
A”

The Smile

We are waiting for the second group of children coming for a reading session today. The group this morning was precious. Well, they all are…but this morning I noticed that all their 4-yr old voices sounded exactly the same, so sweet and shy and innocent. And that’s the hard part – knowing they are innocent…they didn’t ask for a difficult lot in life. Everyday they wake up and probably like all kids, hope something fantastic happens today! We read with them, gave them new pajamas and books to take when they left us and shared a snack. Was that fantastic? Hardly, but to see their little faces and hear their laughter, it sounded pretty close.

The children we see and serve don’t ask for much. They want hugs and juice and someone to read them a story. They want company of people they feel safe around and they want to look at someone who smiles at them and makes them feel loved for as long as the smile will hold.

This smile in the photo here is in her eyes too. And it’s fantastic.

Poetry Plus

Most often the children we see at our Pajama Program Reading Centers are toddlers – 12yrs old. They have missed so much of normal classroom life due to transitions from home to home, school to school. We are amazed that while some 12 year olds can’t even read at a first grade level, some love to read and it comes naturally. We can tell they have really missed their books and story times.

We just finished a Poetry Plus session with a group of 10 teen girls in New Jersey. The girls live in a group home and their backgrounds and reasons for being there are varied – all heartbreaking. The girls wrote more than a dozen heartfelt poems and in 8 weeks learned to trust each other – and us – with their feelings.  Not a simple endeavor.  Emotions ran high.

We have completed many of these Poetry Plus programs with teen girls and they are all similar – they love reading and writing poetry – especially about love. They are all looking for the same thing we women have looked for for centuries, love. It’s funny how we expect these girls to be different in all ways but they aren’t at all. Just as all of us were at 14, 15, 16, they want to belong to someone…to something. They want to feel special. So did I. So, probably, did you.