• Disposable diapers for babies of all sizes, baby wipes, shampoo, lotion
• Individual hand cleaner packets or small bottles of waterless hand cleaners
• Latex free bandaids, medical tape
• Antibacterial soap bars such as Dial
• Toothbrushes and toothpaste
• Combs and hair brushes, hair ties and ribbons
• Individual packets of crayons and coloring books, sidewalk chalk
• Pencils and pencil sharpeners
• Notebooks, small children's story books, especially those with just pictures or in Spanish
• Small toys like the ones that come from McDonalds, Wendy's etc.
• Beanie baby type toys for the children to have when they awake from surgery. (No large stuffed toys please)
• Wooden puzzles, individual games such as Monopoly, Risk, card games etc.
• Checkers and chess sets
• Stickers of all types, packages of balloons of all colors
• Small toy cars such as Matchbox type, small balls, action figures
• Spanish Bibles, religious tracts, etc. Cantonese Bibles, religious tracts, etc
• New bicycles or tricycles that are in boxes-not put together yet
• Acetaminophen products such as Tylenol or generic-infant, child, adult
• Ibuprofen products such as Advil, Motrin or generic-infant, child, adult
• Naproxen products such as Aleve or generic for adults
• Batteries that can be recharged of all sizes and chargers
• Old cell phones that we can refurbish and use for the team members while they are there. Money to buy individual cards for the phones in increments of Q25, Q50 and Q100 ($3.50, $8.00, and $13.00) plus Q200 to start the service ($26.00) We can especially use Nokia and Sony types. We need the chargers for them also. If we can get them with the money to get them activated, we will keep them for use with all the teams. This helps keep everyone connected when our teams are all over different areas. We need a minimum of 8 at this time.
• Long range walkie-talkies-Ours have seen better days, and we are down to only one remaining pair that work at this time. We need at least 4 more pair.
• Battery operated ear thermometers- we need three for the pre-op, surgery, and recovery areas
• Zip lock style bags of all sizes from snack size to one gallon size. We use these up constantly for sorting, separating and storing supplies here and abroad. They can be any brand, so long as they have the zipper type closure.
• Boys and girls underwear of all sizes, preferably with cute little figures on them. Most of the kids have nothing clean to wear into the surgery area.
• We would love for someone to take on a project of making different size patient gowns for the children to wear in surgery. They need velcro closures if possible. If you have a group interested in this project, please send an  email and we will try to find a sample gown to send to you. They are essentially the same type of open back gown that adults wear at any hospital, only we need them in small, medium and large children's sizes.  They do not need pockets on them. Material that has interesting things on it for the kids to look at is best. This helps distract them prior to surgery. 
• Items which can be sent new or slightly used:
• Large bath towels, wash cloths, baby sleepers of all sizes such as the terry cloth type or others, tee shirts which can be used as patient gowns for older children, baby blankets of all sizes.
• Teaching tools:
• Alphabet cards (Spanish or English), packets of vegetable and flower seeds of all kinds, dry marker boards and markers, permanent markers all colors, other basic educational books for PreKindergarten, Kindergarten and early elementary school students. 

Office needs:

• A new computer since ours in now about 8 years old and is too slow for internet use any longer. THIS IS OUR MOST URGENT NEED,  because right now we have to go upstairs to use the internet, and have to leave the office.
• A hand truck to move pallets. This is our second MOST URGENT need.
• 20 very large lidded garbage cans with rollers (these will be used to separate supplies and when they are full they will be ready to move to boxes and ship- then the cans will be reused for the next shipment to be separated).
• A new printer since ours can only have one piece of paper put through it at a time. Several printer cartridges to go with it.
• Plastic totes 30 gallon plus sizes (Rubbermaid is best because it stands up under the rigors of shipping internationally-most of the others will arrive in pretty bad condition and have to be thrown away)
• Cable ties, rubber bands (heavy duty type)
• Packing tape, bubble wrap, etc.
• Suitcases with rollers, (can sometimes be bought cheaply at Goodwill)
• Paper towels, hand wipes, etc
• Gift certificates to fast food restaurants so that we can feed our volunteers on packing days
• U.S. postage stamps for our mailings
• Pens and permanent markers
• Scissors both for office use and small ones for children when we go on teams, staplers, three hole punch, paper shredders
• File folders, printer paper of all colors
• Gift certificates to Office Depot, Best Buy, Staples, Walmart, KMart, Target, etc.  We can use these for office supplies or to buy things we need to take on the teams. 
• Thank you for any help you can give us. Everything that we can get donated rather than buy, means more money we have to help individual children abroad.   Please put a list of what you have included in your box so that we have an inventory. Also,if you will send a copy of the receipt for any items that your purchased we can send you a tax deduction letter.  A medical needs list will be added soon.

NOTE: IF you are sending packed things to the office, if possible, please ship in a Rubbermaid container. You can close them by putting holes in the top where it overlaps the lip of the bottom part of the container, and then close them with cable ties. These are much easier for us to ship and hold up for use as storage once they get there. All boxes should have a list of what items are in the box inside it. If you ship by UPS, or other ground transportation, please let us know that you have shipped the items. You can do this by sending a fax (270-782-9719) or email with the tracking number and also with the list of items that are in each box. That way, it is possible that we will not have to open the item prior to shipping. We must have an exact list of what is inside any boxes that we are shipping through Mexico by land. We can NOT send any clothing items by land. Any tee shirts, underwear, etc will go by air with team members as part of their luggage.

Judy Freeman Schwank

March 30, 2007