Ryan’s Eagle Scout Project–Part III

Once the Donation Dinner Event was over our house was LOADED full of bags and boxes.  Anything that was sorted and labeled was in the garage, the toys were in the ‘fridge room’: a storage room with an extra fridge in it, and the bags and boxes of clothes yet to be sorted were in the other storage room chest high and bulging out the door so that you couldn’t even walk in.  It was a bit overwhelming.  Ryan took down all the posters quickly and earlier than he had planned because he already had more than we were going to be able to fit.

More sorting… Megan and Emily were happy to be in charge of the shoes.  They paired them all up and we decided together which ones were good enough to send and boxed them by general sizes and labeled them.

Two Sorting Parties… One night Brother Clemens, a friend in the ward who Chris and Ryan home teach, volunteered to come help sort clothes with us for an evening.  The next night Ryan invited his friends (and Katie’s) over again for a Pizza/Sorting Clothes Party.  Those friends are so good to come help out… especially the ones who had done 10+ hours of soccer practice that week and were so tired they could barely stand.  Thanks guys!!  My friend, Yvonne, came too, despite her busy schedule and it was so much help!!  My friend Megan, took Emily, Megan, Luke and Matt to her house so we wouldn’t have any distractions and for a much needed play date for our kids and hers.    A great night for everyone.

Toys and Sports Equipment: I really can’t believe I don’t have any toy sorting pictures.  Katie’s entire room/the downstairs family room area was COVERED with toys and it stayed like that for a couple weeks.  We spent a LOT of time sorting toys – which all the kids were interested in.  Matt and Luke loved to be down there exploring in the toys and would ‘try out’ different toys every day.  Matt found two identical toys one day and said, “Mom, one for the orphanage and one for me!”   Another day we overheard one of the kids say, “Those orphans are so lucky” because of some great Lego sets.   Because we had so many donations, we really were able to take just the best.  There were a lot of great toys.  We had the ages of each of the kids at the group homes and carefully divided the toys into appropriate piles.

Since our landlords are selling our house when we move, the real estate agent’s first visit urged one last ‘get it all done’ toy sorting/cleaning day.   All the kids worked really hard all Saturday long and finished just in time for our entire house to be photographed by the agent.  It was actually really nice to have a deadline. 

Packing Up the Night Before we Leave…  I also didn’t take a picture of the bags and boxes in the garage chest deep but here they are as they grouped the bags by girl/boy and size so they could load the vans by specific group home. 

We spent a good amount of time thinking about how we’d get all of this stuff to Budapest.  Chris looked at renting a truck or a trailer but we just didn’t have enough money for it.  At the Taco Dinner Donation Event, friends the Petersons and the Nelsons approached us about wanting to help drive donations to Hungary with us.  It worked out perfectly.  We packed three vans tight with car carriers on top – and still didn’t fit it all.  The rest will be making it’s way down to the same organization in late April when Patricia and volunteers will be making a trip up to speak here in Heidelberg and then take things back.  It’s great the way it all worked out.