You can buy a Four Seasons Gift Card at their website.
For the 16th year in a row, St. Thomas and St. George's Anglican Churches in Owen Sound have set up their display at the Heritage Mall to promote Sleeping Children Around the World and sell bedkits.
Looking after things on Saturday afternoon were (Left to right) Cara Douglas, Audrey Beatty, and Lynda Douglas.
The campaign is on until Christmas.
Potential donors in Owen Sound can contact the churches for more information or a donation form.
If you're not in Owen Sound, you can always download a copy of the donation form from the Sleeping Children website at this link.
Johnny Max 1st Annual Christmas Party
Time: 3 - 7 PM
Date: Saturday, December 5th
Place: The Harp Restaurant & Pub
55 LAKESHORE RD E.
PORT CREDIT VILLAGE
Entry: $10 DONATION
All proceeds go to
Sleeping Children Around The World and Sick Kids Hospital
Click image to enlarge.
Submitted by Eileen Rademacher
St. Gregory R.C. Church,
122 Rathburn Road, Etobicoke
Ontario, M9B 2K6
Annual Craft Show, Tea Garden and Bake Sale
Saturday, November 21st 2009 – 9 am. to 1 pm.
Sunday, November 22nd 2009 – after all the Masses
Wood Crafts, Knitting, Jewelry, Art, Christmas Decorations and much more
Raffle Prizes
- 1st Prize: Flat-screen TV
Donated by Turner and Porter Funeral Homes - 2nd Prize: Two tickets for the Toronto Raptors
- 3rd Prize: Baskets of various gifts worth $150
- And many more prizes ………
I will be having a table at this event selling my cards, book marks and other art work. Proceeds will be donated to Sleeping Children Around the World
Eileen Rademacher
On Saturday, November 21st from 10 am to 4 pm you can help Sleeping Children Around the World and experience the magic of the fourth annual Christmas Bazaar and Open House at Hitherfield School.
Proceeds to support Sleeping Children Around the World.
Hitherfield School
2439 10th Side Road,
Campbellville, ON
With over forty vendors offering
- gift baskets,
- toys,
- woodworking,
- jewelry,
- crafts,
- baked goods,
- and so much more.
Click on graphic for a larger version.
Website: www.hitherfieldschool.com
As published in the Stratford Beacon Herald
October 20, 2009
By LAURA CUDWORTH
Two Stratford residents will bombard some of the poorest regions of Bangladesh with "bed kits" this week.
Doug MacDougald and Sue Orr (pictured at right after they arrived in Bangladesh) will distribute a total of 9,000 bed kits in about two weeks. The kits are from Sleeping Children Around the World and contain a mosquito net, mat or mattress, blanket, pillow, clothes, towel and school supplies.
This will be Mr. MacDougald's third trip distributing bed kits and his second to Bangladesh. This trip is extra special because one of the areas Mr. MacDougald will be working in is the city of Jessore. It's the same city his father was posted in during the Second World War and he heard about it growing up.
Fittingly as well, it was his parents who got him interested in contributing to and distributing bed kits.
Bangladesh will pose its own set of challenges. It's hot, has poor infrastructure and it's the most densely populated country in the world. There are an estimated 162 million people crammed into 148,000 square kilometres. That's double the size of New Brunswick which has a population of 748,000 people.
All of that poses logistical challenges but there are bigger hurdles to overcome.
"The big challenge is reconciling myself to the lives these kids have. Luck of the draw they're born in Bangladesh and have their lives. Luck of the draw we're born in Canada and have our lives," Mr. MacDougald said from the airport yesterday afternoon.
The kits cost $35 and many churches, schools and other organizations in Stratford and area have purchased them. All of the money goes toward the contents of the kits. None of the $35 donation goes toward administration or distribution so volunteers pay their own way.
"I think the return is worth more in the end," Ms. Orr said while waiting to clear security.
The fact all the money goes to the bed kits was the draw for Ms. Orr.
This is her second trip to distribute bed kits but her first trip to Bangladesh. Not sure what to expect, she packed a jar of peanut butter and some power bars to eat while there.
Each child is photographed with their kit and the photo is sent to a donor. Ms. Orr noted the kits help the whole family not just one child.
"It's like they've hit the lottery," she said.
Many of the kids can't believe everything laid out is actually for them, Mr. MacDougald said.
The bed kits last about eight years.
Bangladesh was originally part of India but separated as part of Pakistan in 1947.
Economic neglect and discrimination led to war in 1971 and the formation of present day Bangladesh.
For more information about bed kits go to the Sleeping Children Around the World website at www.scaw.org.
Follow their trip as it happens on Sleeping Children's Live Reports blog.
Submitted by Lynette Jenkins
The 10th annual concert, “An Evening With Lynette and Friends” will be held on the 28th November, 2009 from 5 – 7 p.m. This features artists from the Kiwanis Music Festival and friends who will be singing and performing for the children in underdeveloped and developing countries that are helped by SCAW.
Unfortunately, I have had to raise the cost of entrance this year. Tickets are now $15 for children over 13 and adults. Children (under 13) tickets are $2 and there is no charge for the under 5s. The reason I have had to do this is because the cathedral has raised its rental fee from $0 to $1,600 for the concert. I am hoping that this extra money will offset the costs. We already have a sponsor for the evening, but to ask them to increase their generosity by this amount would be too much. Because of this marked increase in rental costs, this is the last time we will be holding this event at St. James. I hope you understand.
You will certainly not be disappointed by the quality of performers that have been lined up for the evening, and I am sure you will enjoy the music and it will set you and your family up for the season.
If you have any queries about this event – please email me.
As published in The Toronto Star
July 12, 2009
Two charities spend it all on good works
By Kevin Donovan,
Staff Reporter
Dave Dryden and Nigel Raincock have raised millions of dollars for charity. Each man does it in a completely different way but their fundraising has one key thing in common.
Every cent you donate to their cause goes to good works.
Dryden heads up Sleeping Children Around the World, a charity based in the Etobicoke home where Dave and brother Ken learned to skate and stop pucks on a backyard rink. The charity raises money to help individual children in developing countries with "bedkits" – simple collections of bedding, school supplies, sometimes mosquito nets or school uniforms. They just delivered their one millionth kit in the Philippines and are setting their sights on the next million.
"We want this charity to go on forever," said Dryden.
Last year, Sleeping Children raised $2.8 million. Since it began in 1970, founded by Dave and Ken's late father, Murray Dryden, they have raised $20 million.
The charity could not be more grassroots. A $35 donation purchases a bedkit, using supplies from the home country. Volunteers assemble and distribute them at their own expense. That means the volunteer pays for airfare and accommodations in far-flung places like India, Honduras and Uganda.
There is no fundraising expense. Amazingly, word of mouth has built this charity. Donors get a photo of their bedkit being delivered. Those letters and photos are assembled on the top floor of the two-storey Dryden home by women who have volunteered for decades.
Any administrative expenses, like postage and the pay of the lone salaried employee is covered by an investment fund Murray Dryden left the charity. Every cent of each donation goes to the cause.
This is a charity that could not be more low key. A plate of brownies or some breakfast treats arrives occasionally for the volunteers. The people who go on the delivery trips overseas are often retired teachers or principals. Charity rules stop them from claiming a tax receipt for expenses that are typically $5,000.
At the other end of the spectrum is Set Sail for Hope, an annual fundraiser that mixes Toronto's business, culinary and yachting elite. Set Sail exists to support one charity, Camp Trillium – overnight and day camps that bring children with cancer and their families together.
"Cancer doesn't take a holiday, it doesn't care about the economy," said Raincock, Set Sail's chair, in a rousing speech to those assembled at its annual gala on the Toronto Islands recently.
On that Friday afternoon, 20 tables were set with white linen under spreading canopies. Chefs from some of Toronto's top restaurants, and their staff, donated time, food and considerable culinary expertise. Acqua Ristorante, Buca, Jacobs & Co. Steakhouse and Epic at the Fairmont Royal York were among them.
There was beer and wine, oyster bars and, moored near the tables, 20 sleek yachts with names like Short Circuit, Kaisei and Sea Runner. Captains and crews donated time for a cruise after lunch.
The price of admission per table/yacht is a $7,500 donation. It's mostly corporations like CIBC, Citibank Canada and Scotia Capital that donate, typically sending valued employees as a reward. They were short a table this year, and Raincock's daughter got a group of friends to kick in for the last table.
Set Sail raises between $150,000 and $160,000 annually. This year was tough, but it met its target.
"You have to kiss a lot of toads to get a princess," said Raincock, lauding the corporations who stuck by in a tough year.
Since the fundraising effort started 23 years ago, albeit as a brown bag lunch with smaller boats, Set Sail has raised $1.9 million.
Raincock's own boat, much smaller than the 44-foot yachts now used, just gets him over to the island. "This event has grown so big, she just doesn't fit in," he laughs.
With all the food, equipment, staff and boats donated for the day, the only cost Set Sail has is a $25 event permit for selling alcohol. Somebody covered that.
"Thank you for making a difference in so many kids' lives," said city Councillor Sandra Bussin, on hand to give the city's good wishes.
"It's remarkable," said Fiona Fisher, Camp Trillium's development director, as she welcomed people to the event that has been a mainstay for the unique camps.
Our 2010 calendar has arrived. The calendar for 2010 celebrates SCAW's 40th year but it's a fourteen-month calendar that starts with November, 2009.
The calendar sells for $10 and contains photos from past years' distributions in all the countries we visit. (Click the graphic above to see a larger version.)
The 2010 calendar is sponsored by Lynette Jenkins and dedicated to her father, Charles Tudor Jenkins, Harold Charles Jarman, and all fathers everywhere. For each month, the calendar shows children who have received bedkits from Sleeping Children Around the World in the past years and celebrates our fortieth year.
The entire $10 helps buy bedkits for needy children. If you don't need a tax receipt, why not buy some calendars. You'll have something to remind you about Sleeping Children all through the year, and you'll be providing bedkits for some deserving children. It makes a great gift for someone else too.
You can buy it online on our website.
Published on the Individuell Manniskohjalp website by Filip Nilsson, one of their volunteers. In case you can't read the original Swedish at the link above, Filip sent us an English translation.
– The new beds are much better than the old ones, and the pillows are really soft, says Tsering Dolma when I ask her what she thinks of her new bedkit. She is a ninth grade student at the Munsel-Ling and is sitting outside the school with three of her friends. They are all very happy with each and one of them just receiving one of the 380 bedkits distributed at the school during the last couple of days.
A few days after our arrival we meet three volunteers, Clarence, Laura and Milton from the Canadian organisation “Sleeping Children Around the World”, SCAW. They are visiting the school for a few hectic days when they are distributing 380 beds complete with mattresses, bed linen and pillows. While the kids were busy listening to the Dalai Lama the old beds were carried away and truckload after truckload arrived with new beds and accessories.
– Earlier this year, in Kenya, we distributed our one millionth bedkit. Because of this are we now making a couple of extra celebratory journeys, not least this one to Spiti valley because our founder visited this area on one of his trips in the 1970’s, Clarence tells me. Almost everything we distribute is produced locally, preferably by smaller enterprises. That way we do away with unnecessary transportation and contribute to local business, he adds.
Even though there are many beds and bedkits being put in place in a short time, this is a small project in comparison. Often times the organisation distributes about 4,000 bedkits per project. After seeing all the people involved just at the school with the distribution one realises the amount of work behind it all.
- Lama Tashi has been our main contact at the school and we first got in touch almost a year ago, Clarence tells me. He and Principal Tsering Dorje have been most helpful with the work on location, Clarence finishes.
That the new beds are welcome is perfectly clear when talking to the students and Lama Tashi is also very happy when we meet him. He underlines the importance of getting these new beds and bed linen for the kids. Something we volunteers can agree with after visiting the sleeping quarters and seeing their old beds.
- Now we will see to it that we be finished with our new student dormitory in September, before snowfall, Lama Tashi tells us and smiles when we ask him what the next important project at the school is.
Filip Nilsson
For more information about this special distribution, go to our Live Reports Blog.
Submitted by Kay Mountford
Date: Saturday, August 8, 2009
Location: Store Parking Lot, Loblaw Great Foods, 380 The East Mall
Time: 11am to 5pm
Charity Recipients: Presidents’ Choice Children’s Charity & Sleeping Children Around the World
Activities:
- BBQ and drinks
- Toronto Police
- Toronto Fire Department
- OPP Car
- Classic Cars
- Salsa Band & DJ’s
- Clowns
- Dunk Tank
- Children’s Games & Prizes
- PC Gift Basket Draw
- Car Wash
- Silent Auction
- Mini Manicure & Skin Consultation (Cosmetics)
This is going to be a GREAT day!!
Submitted by Loreen and Doug Cumming
Students of Hepworth Central Elementary Public School held a blitz this spring to raise money for Sleeping Children Around the World. For their kick off, we did a presentation on our distribution in Togo in May 2008.
Each classroom had a large coke bottle into which students put loose change from their own piggy banks or from a family donation.
This small school of 360 students raised enough money in two weeks to purchase eighteen bedkits.
The students loved the photos from TOGO which we showed to them and clearly they were motivated to bring money for this very worthwhile project.
Congratulations Hepworth Central Elementary School.
As published in the Globe and Mail, Monday, May. 25, 2009
Deirdre Kelly
Eight pook toques at $25 each. Total cost: $225, taxes included
Dave Dryden, chairman of Sleeping Children Around the World on his most recent splurge
As a former NHL goalie, hockey has always been a passion of mine. As such, in January I went to Deerhurst for its annual pond-hockey tournament where I saw someone wearing a very neat and unique winter hat.As told to Deirdre Kelly
I have always been drawn to things that are creative, which I think these hats are. They come with a sheet showing you all the ways you can wear them, from a Princess Leia style to a Donald Trump Comb-Over. I thought them too unique to pass up.
The tuques are made out of old-fashioned outdoor socks and reminded me of the days playing hockey on the pond, so there was a sentimental aspect to making the purchase as well.
Since I have six grandchildren, I bought eight.
But my enthusiasm for the tuques did not translate well with my family.
First of all, four out of six of my grandchildren live in Guatemala, and have no use for a winter hat. Another, Anaka, wore the tuque once, but never again. In the end, I never even wore mine. Shortly after I purchased the hats, I went on a Sleeping Children Around the World bedkit distribution trip with my family to Pune, India. When I returned the snow had melted.
My wife thinks I'm crazy.
These days, the hats are back in their original bag, hidden at the back of my closet beneath a pile of sweaters.
I like to think of them as a buried treasure.
I hope one day that when I reach into my closet to pull the hats out, someone else will finally share my enthusiasm, and they'll get used.
East York Kiwanis &
Sleeping Children Around the World
Click on graphic to see larger version
Free Lecture Series
Dave Dryden and Lynette Jenkins will talk about the tremendous impact that Margaret and Murray Dryden have made by inspiring the delivery of over 1,000,000 bedkits to children in third world countries.
The story of SCAW (Sleeping Children Around the World)
This is a free, open meeting and the general public is very welcome.
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009
Time: 7:30 pm
York Reception Centre,
1100 Millwood Rd, (Corner of Millwood & Overlea Blvd.)
Thorncliffe Park Drive
Toronto, ON M4H 1K3
Free child care will be provided.
Breakout is part of the Saturday Morning Children's Block on CBC-TV.
On Saturday, May 16th Theo Dryden was featured speaking about Sleeping Children Around the Wold, the charity started by his great-grandfather and great-grandmother in 1970. He appears in the final segment of the seven-minute program.
Theo's report from the Pune distribution is on the SCAW website.
As published in the Halifax Chronicle Herald
Tue. May 12, 2009
Bed kits received like Christmas presents by impoverished children around the world
By LOIS LEGGE Features Writer
 |
| Clarence Deyoung, a 20-year volunteer with Sleeping Children Around the World, stands in his Hammonds Plains home with one of the bedkits he distributes to children in developing countries. The Canadian non-profit organization provides a bed kit for every $35 donation. (INGRID BULMER / Staff) |
MOST CANADIANS take their beds for granted. They can usually count on clean clothes too, school supplies for their children and not dying from mosquito bites.
But Clarence Deyoung has met families who sleep on dirt floors, face the risk of malaria and can’t afford even basic medical care.
So, for the past 20 years the Hammonds Plains man has paid his own way to places like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Honduras to deliver bed kits he says are more like cherished Christmas presents than basics for the impoverished children he meets.
Working with partner organizations in the affected countries, Deyoung and others bring much needed mattresses, pillows and blankets; clothes, school supplies and mosquito nets (when needed to ward off malaria) to children aged six to 12.
They’re all volunteers with the Canadian non-profit Sleeping Children Around the World (SCAW), which provides a bed kit for every $35 donation.
Murray and Margaret Dryden, the late parents of hockey great Ken Dryden, started the charity in 1970. It has since raised millions of dollars. It delivered its one millionth bed kit to a needy child overseas earlier this year.
"In many cases (it’s) the only thing new these kids will ever get in their life and they are just so excited and they are so appreciative. It’s absolutely amazing," says the 58-year-old retiree, who figures a trip to India this coming July will be his 26th or 27th mission for the charity.
Not everyone can afford to make as many trips as Deyoung since those who travel for the organization do so at their own cost. He estimates each trip ranges from $3,000-$5,000. But even so, the organization has no shortage of volunteers. In fact, it now has a waiting list of about 200 wanting to travel abroad, Deyoung says.
He puts their enthusiasm and the success of the organization down to several factors including the fact that 100 per cent of every $35 donation goes toward the kit supplies and every one who gives receives a picture of the child who benefitted from their donation.
SCAW organizers provide the money to churches, community groups or other non-profits in the foreign countries and they in turn buy the supplies most needed. Teams of six from SCAW then travel to the countries and deliver the kits to children, who have their pictures taken next to the supplies and the name of the donor.
"They like seeing the result . . . of their donations," says Deyoung, who started volunteering with the organization in 1989 after selling his Toronto-based computer business to Apple. He returned to his native Nova Scotia six years later.
"We all, everyday, support many, many, many, very worthwhile organizations, but it’s something in our human nature that we like to see something back and . . . very often we give and give and give and it seems to go in no-man’s-land and you never know where it in fact ever ends up."
But the pictures, he says "help fill that need."
"The other thing was that, although he didn’t like the word marketing, Mr. Dryden was quite a marketer himself in that, very often, when people get pictures back it’s a reminder for them to send in another $35."
The organization doesn’t directly solicit donations, says Deyoung, noting the founder felt people should give because they wanted to give not because they were pressured to donate.
Deyoung and other volunteers often give presentations about their work at schools and to community groups. And often that’s enough to get people involved in the organization, supported by a $3-million "legacy fund" from the late founders, which helps pay for things like postage, phone bills and other administrative costs.
Deyoung says he stays involved — travelling to India, the Philippines, Ecuador, Nicaragua and other places — because he sees first hand the impact $35 can make. The father of two grown children also serves on the charity’s all-volunteer board and executive committee. And he’s in charge of overseas distribution.
"It’s phenomenally rewarding work, but you know I do it simply because I have the time to and my belief is that anybody who has two arms, two legs, a heartbeat and some time should be doing whatever they can for the less fortunate in our world," says Deyoung, acknowledging the trips are often emotionally draining.
"Rarely a day goes by when the team is not in tears over some situation that we’ve run across," he says.
Not having enough bed kits to go around is often one of the most difficult aspects of the deliveries.
"We always have people gathering in the villages hoping we will have some left over. . .
"We’ve seen so many children with medical conditions that don’t have the money to be able to get that medical fix, if you will. We’ve seen one little 11-year-old girl who had lived for the best part of a year with worms because her mom didn’t have the money for the medication and so our team jumped in and bought her the medication and she recovered fantastic.
"Another little girl . . . her mom and dad were gone out for food and she was left alone in her hut and had a little propane burner that blew up and this poor little girl was burnt from head to foot. . . . She couldn’t open her mouth to eat properly, so again we arranged to have three operations for her.
"This now is something that we as individual teams have done, this has nothing to do with Sleeping Children, but it just grabs you by (the) heart and it’s so sad to see these kinds of things go on that, if it was here in our society, could be fixed. . . . We’re very, very, very fortunate to be living in the country we are."
(llegge@herald.ca)
Go to www.scaw.org for more information or contact Deyoung at clarence@scaw.org.
 |
| From Chennai Photo Album 2009 |
Elementary students give to global charity
by Laura Cummings
From children, to children – that was the notion at the heart of one east-end school’s latest charity fundraiser, collecting over $1,000 for an organization that ensures kids get a good night’s sleep.
Orléans’ Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha School officially handed over $1,575 to Sleeping Children Around the World (SCAW) on Thursday, April 30, after weeks of gathering money for the cause, explains principal Marilyn Hanley, an especially impressive amount for “a teeny, tiny school.”
The funding, she continues, will go towards the purchase of 45 bedkits for children in developing nations, and was raised primarily through students doing at-home chores, as well as smaller initiatives like popcorn sales over the Lenten holiday between February and March.
Blessed Kateri has supported SCAW for several years, Hanley recounts, explaining they favour the charity because none of the money raised goes towards administration costs.
“Every penny goes to (the children),” she says, adding they also donated gently-used sports jerseys to kids in India this year.
With students responding “very enthusiastically” to the initiative, Blessed Kateri was able to collect enough money this year to purchase 10 more bedkits than the last, Hanley continues. Grade 6 students also created a PowerPoint presentation about SCAW at the beginning of their fundraising efforts, she explains, making the project that much more accessible.
“Having the kids take a look at where the money’s going makes it more real,” Hanley suggests.
It’s money that’s going to good use, continues SCAW overseas team leader and Orléans resident Tom Belton.
The main mandate of SCAW is the belief that “every child has the right to have a place to sleep at night,” he explains of the organization created by Murray Dryden, father of Hockey Hall of Fame star Ken Dryden, as a retirement project.
The non-denominational, almost entirely volunteer-run group funnels donations into bedkits – comprised of items like mattresses, pillows and mosquito netting, as well as some toiletries, clothing and school supplies – for children in need around the world, Belton continues, with “every penny, every cent” going to the project.
Locations are selected for support after in-depth analysis by SCAW, he recounts, with the majority of items purchased in-country by volunteers working there. Kits are handed out equally between genders and those with varying religious beliefs, Belton explains, and are also often divvied up amongst siblings or passed down in families.
“The need for bedkits is extremely important,” he says, citing the high numbers of HIV-positive or malarial children in many developing countries, in addition to other challenges like poverty and hunger. “To have a few hours of rest, a few hours of comfort, a few hours of warmth (is key). It’s a chance to be peaceful … to prepare for the next day.”
Blessed Kateri has done “a tremendous job over the four years I’ve been involved with them,” Belton continues, acknowledging the school’s ongoing efforts.
Their support is even more poignant considering the similar ages between the school’s students and those they’re helping around the world, he suggests.
“When it comes from children to children, it makes a significant impression,” Belton explains. “It’s a gift of love from the heart.”
For more information, please visit www.scaw.org
