To many of you, the women in this photo may be unfamiliar; to others, they may be old friends. This small group of women – Ann Kedl, Carol Hoag, Ting Ting Chan-Sullivan and Kelly Thompson – are the founders of Baobei Foundation. Baobei began with the vision of these few committed volunteers who wanted to help Chinese orphans.  It has grown into a movement, far beyond what its founders ever imagined, something that can only be sustained by volunteers like you.

It is said that change is inevitable in life and Baobei Foundation is embarking on some changes that we would like to share with you.

Carol Hoag, who has been Baobei’s Managing Director, and her family will be moving back to Midland, Michigan in June.  Carol will remain on the Baobei Board of Directors and will continue to support the Baobei operations by helping to manage our finances and to develop a more robust marketing and fundraising effort in the U.S.

Ann Kedl, who has been Baobei’s Orphan Care Director, will be spending less time in China over the next two years as her youngest daughter will finish high school in the U.S. Ann will remain on Baobei’s Board of Directors and will continue to support Baobei as a healing home advisor. She will also start building a Baobei alumni group through networking with past healing home families now living abroad and other organizations that support special-needs adoption. Ann plans to make regular trips back to Shanghai and will have close contact with Baobei’s healing home staff.

Carol and Ann have much to celebrate as they approach this change. In Baobei’s first 4 years, more than 140 children have been given much-needed medical care, at least 85 children have received family care in healing homes and 68 have been adopted or are currently matched for adoption.

Looking ahead we are excited to share some new faces with you.

Announcing our New Executive & Healing Home Directors

Dr. Earl Tai and his wife, Evelin…

As Executive Director, Earl will oversee program management, fundraising, public relations, marketing and orphanage and government relations. Recently transitioning into this position, he “is already astounded by the great generosity of individuals and corporations as they sacrificially apply talents and resources to bettering the lives of China’s neediest orphans.”

Earl and Evelin have lived in Shanghai for four years with their three children. Before moving to China, Earl served as Acting Chair of the Department of Art and Design Studies at Parsons The New School for Design in New York. He holds degrees from Tulane, Harvard and Columbia Universities and has received grants from the Fulbright Foundation, Harvard University, Columbia University and the U.S. Department of Education. His scholarly specializations include education, social justice, and cross-cultural design. He speaks internationally on these topics and serves as an advisor for a number of not-for-profit organizations. If you are a donor or volunteer wishing to partner with Baobei, please do not hesitate to contact Earl at earl.tai@baobeifoundation.org.

Evelin Tai was born in New York City and, with grants and honors, earned degrees in economics & social ethics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary & Columbia University.  In her role as Baobei’s Healing Home Director, she hopes to bring her various experiences with children as well as her passion for orphans into her mission for finding post-operative healing homes and managing childcare and aftercare issues.   After two months of transitioning into this job Evelin says,

“I have been so deeply touched and blessed by the stories of Baobei children and families and look forward to working together in this important cause.”

Evelin can be emailed at Evelin@baobeifoundation.org.

Changes to Baobei’s Medical Team

Drs. Ron and Celese Beaudreau have recently been added to Baobei’s Medical Team.  They are pictured below with Baby May.

Celese is an American-trained pediatrician from Augusta, GA and Baobei’s Medical Director.  She is managing this position while working part-time as a pediatrician at United Family Hospital.  Before moving to Shanghai with her husband in 2008, she had 10 years of experience in the US working as a Pediatric Hospitalist and a Pediatric Emergency Room Physician.  The Beaudreaus are currently in the process of adopting two children from China.  She can be contacted at dr.celese@baobeifoundation.org.

Ron has volunteered with Baobei Foundation as a medical advisor for the past year and is on the Board of Directors.  He is an American-trained Emergency Physician with more than 15 years experience in Emergency Medicine and currently works in the Emergency Department in Shanghai United Family Hospital. He first came to Shanghai in 1992 on his last rotation in medical school and has remained interested in China since that time.  From 2000 to 2004, he worked in Shanghai with International SOS doing medical evacuations.  Ron’s email address is dr.ron@baobeifoundation.org.

Finally, we would like to introduce Cydnie Maitrejean, Baobei’s Assistant Medical Director.

Cydnie and her husband moved to Shanghai in June 2009. She is from the US and has a background is in Infectious Disease Research. She enjoys volunteering with Baobei because,

“I appreciate the opportunity to give back to my host country. It’s an exciting opportunity to see these little ones receive a new lease on life!”

In her role as Assistant Medical Director Cydnie is mainly responsible for  coordinating post-operative medical care. This includes vaccines, well-baby check-ups and sick appointments.  Cydnie can be contacted at cydnie@baobeifoundation.org.

Ann and Carol are so blessed to be able to transition with such a gifted team in place.  We know you will enjoy getting to know them as much as we have!

______________________

While good-byes are never easy, we’re so grateful to all of you who have helped bring Baobei to this milestone and shown us that…

“A little Consideration, a little Thought for Others, makes all the difference.” - Winnie the Pooh

You have richly blessed us during our time in Shanghai!

Xie xie, bao bei de peng you!

Carol Hoag
Ann Kedl

My daughter Aerin is 10 and a 4th grade student at Concordia. She recently finished a Girl Scouts project to celebrate the 100 years of Girl Scouts. They had to do a set of 25 things, one set from each of 4 different categories that total up to 100. The different categories were friendship, fun, community and environment. For her community part she chose to help Baobei. Her goal was to educate 25 people or more about Baobei and share her personal experience with having Charlie and Isabel. She also wanted to see if through that education she could get 25 donations of any amount. She far exceeded her goals. She educated 41 people on her own through email, Skype and by phone. She was so effective that the information kept getting passed along! One of our friends read Aerin’s letter to her staff at the preschool where Aerin attended in Houston, Texas (USA) and educated an additional 79 people. Aerin’s grandfather was so touched that he read Aerin’s letter to his staff at work and educated an additional 17 people. That’s 137 people we know of to whom she helped spread the word about Baobei! After all was said and done she ended up with over 50 donations totaling 20,000 RMB, and the best part is that if the company matching-gifts program comes through, every bit of that should be matched for an additional 20,000 RMB!!!

I wanted you to know the story behind her work and how proud we are of her. I am continually amazed at how well our older two kids have accepted Isabel and Charlie and how they want to give back and help more babies. Jack (3rd grade) stood up in front of his entire class the other day and shared impromptu all about Baobei and Isabel and Charlie. He confidently told his teacher that we still wanted more in our family, but I can assure you we have a full house for now.  You never know how the family dynamics will change when you expand your family, especially when the new additions require so much time and energy. We have been extremely blessed by it all.

Thanks so much for all the work you do. You have made such an impact on our family in so many ways and we are grateful for that!

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THANK YOU, AERIN!  Your efforts will be such a blessing to our new Baby Olivia who recently arrived and is at SCMC recovering from her surgery.

I am participating in The Milan City Marathon on April 15th and I am asking my friends and family to help me raise $1000 for Baobei Foundation.

I chose Baobei Foundation because it changes the lives of children with neurological and gastrointestinal birth defects. It provides life-saving surgeries and post-surgery care for orphans, allowing them to live through their childhood, happy and healthy. I am about to make one of my dreams come true, lets help the children of Baobei Foundation dream big!

I have seen how these life-saving operations help these Baobei children, the work of the doctors and nurses in Shanghai is extraordinary; and the Baobei Foundation community is wonderful and incredibly supportive. My family and I have had the luxury of fostering a few Baobei children in the past few years and witnessed how these children recover and strive in life.

Thanks to these operations, my family now consist of one more. Bei (Jorge) was the first BaoBei child and he officially became part of my family over the summer of 2011. He has however, been part of my family since he arrived on a late Tuesday afternoon to my house in my mother’s arms from the hospital. He was recovering from his hydrocephalus and spina bifida operations; he was just over two- months old and would hardly move. Now however, after many nappy changes, messy food fights, his first few steps and lots of smiles and laughs; no one can get him to be quiet and stop running around the house… just like your everyday 4-year-old boy.

Please consider sponsoring me for the Milan City Marathon, no matter how big or small your donation; together we can help these children live happily and healthy and help their dreams come true.

Thank you so much, Muchísimas gracias, 谢谢你 : )

Cesar

Sponsor Cesar

Baobei’s Baby Gabriel received a wonderful Christmas gift today.  The ninth grade class of The German School Shanghai raised 5045 RMB by selling hand-made chalk boards in a variety of colors and shapes at their recent Christmas bazaar.  I went to meet these charitable entrepreneurs today and was completely impressed with their enthusiasm.  It was such a pleasure to personally receive this gift from their hearts.  Big thanks to moms, Uschi and Anke, for inspiring and leading the teens!  You have blessed Gabriel’s life!  Isn’t this what Christmas giving is all about?  Frohe Wiehnachten to all of you, German school ninth-graders!

We’re so grateful for Erin Garvey who is now in 6th Grade at Shanaghai American School, Pudong.

Last spring she came up with a unique way to help Baby Ruby get her surgery.

My name is Erin Garvey. Last year I hosted a Dodgeball Tournament Fundraiser for Baobei. To get into the tournament you had to pay 25 RMB.
All the money that was collected was donated to Baobei to pay for a little baby named Ruby. Sadly we didn’t raise enough money to pay for Ruby’s entire surgery but we did raise 17,000 RMB!
I was so grateful to those participated in the tournament! I really admire all the work that Baobei does and was so happy to be able to help.
- Erin

We appreciate you and your classmates from SAS, Erin!

So naturally we want to support CISS’ internship program each spring, but I confess that each year it comes around, I get the feeling that it’s going to be a lot of additional work for me.  After the last two weeks, however, I am again looking back wondering how I could’ve ever had those feelings.  The students are always so passionate about what they do- from the mundane (inventory management) to the most meaningful (helping babies at the hospital) and our volunteer management staff always steps in to round out their internship experience by showing them the breadth of our work.

This year we were blessed by the hard work and big hearts of Kelly Thielman, Katherine Abel and Alexandrea Lee this year.  They are all juniors at CISS and pictured in order in the below photo.  I can’t say much more that would be nearly as meaningful as their own words- so keep reading to see how much they gained from their experiences with us.  Thanks, girls, we’ll sure miss you, and thanks Baobei management team for all of your support!

“Holding these babies, making them feel loved, taking inventory, and organizing garages are not necessarily skills learned in school, or even at college. In fact, this whole internship is not academic learning.  I’m not learning how to use fancy technology, or about economics, or how to be a salesman. And the more I continue with this internship, the more I realize that that is not what I’m going to be doing. I never believed my career would be one in an office, and now I’m even more sure of it. The more ‘office’-type skills are still important to learn as they will be a useful resource in life, but I need something that I can be passionate about, something I can live my life for.” Alex Lee

“As the babies started waking up before they would open their eyes they began to cry but would calm down as soon as you spoke to them or put your hand on them, it broke my heart that these kids, especially Caleb who is 4 months, just wanted to know that someone was there with them. It gives reason to think that at some point they didn’t have someone there for them that they automatically think of if someone is with them. I wonder if Caleb remembers his parents at all, the way they smelled, the way they sounded, the way they felt, and for a 4 month old there is no way to understand why you have something then suddenly don’t. Perhaps I am reading into the feelings of a baby too much, but I suppose that this would be true with any orphan and there are plenty of those.” Kelly Thielman

“Today Mrs. Liptak took us to the hospital to see two new babies.  One was 19 days old and the other was 4 months old. I was shocked at how young the little one was and to think that around the time of exams while I was worried about getting a good grade there was a little baby boy being abandoned by his mother and taken to an orphanage. Today was a humbling experience, it reminded me that I need to think less about minor issues occurring in my life because there are far worse circumstances that people, or in this case; that babies, are being faced with.” Kate Abel

]]> http://www.baobeifoundation.org/stories/?feed=rss2&p=328 http://www.baobeifoundation.org/stories/?p=325&owa_from=feed&owa_sid=3255855228 http://www.baobeifoundation.org/stories/?p=325#comments Tue, 19 Apr 2011 09:58:04 +0000 philip http://www.baobeifoundation.org/stories/?p=325  

Thanks to Nelson Marote and many of his classmates at YCIS, Baobei is 12,000 RMB closer to another orphan surgery. The group of students in the attached photo (Nelson was away at a soccer tournament), came together for a rocking night of music and fun. Student bands played at the school and refreshments were offered. All proceeds went to help children like Baby Natalie who was born with spina bifida (see photo). We’re so appreciative of the youth in Shanghai- those like Nelson and his friends- who are already thinking much beyond themselves to make a difference in their community. Thank you, YCIS!

Nelson’s mother is Christine Marote who is Baobei’s Volunteer Coordinator for hospital visits. She can be contacted at christine@baobeifoundation.org if you’re interested in learning more about this work. We’re glad the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in the Marote family!

Kim Brewer, new Baobei volunteer, did a great job of organizing us this year- from buying t-shirts to stuffing race packets.  We appreciate you, Kim!!!

Thanks to ALL of our runners- from less than 5 to over 50 years old!  Lucas Allen (junior at Concordia) easily came in first among the 8K Baobei team with a time of something close to 35 minutes!  Seth Liptak flew ahead in the 2K and finished as some were barely starting (well- it seemed like it anyway!)  Great job, guys!  It was encouraging to see so many students “racing for their lives”- a small glimpse of our great generation following in our footsteps (no pun intended).  Gorgeous day with great memories…  enjoy the photos, Team Baobei!

To see more photos click here.

The inspiration for this story came from Iñigo’s son, Lucas. When he was a year and a half old, he jumped over his crib railing, fell and hit his mouth and lost a tooth. Given his age, an operation was not feasible so he remained like that, without that tooth, until his permanent teeth came out. He was a bit distressed with his “difference”, so he came up with the story emphasizing the absence of a tooth as something positive.

The author’s friend, Reyes Teixeria, lives in Shanghai and is part of the passionate Latin group helping Baobei. She decided that this story could help others in a number of ways and together, she and Inigo set out to translate it into English and Mandarin. Reyes then worked with a class of students at the British International School Shanghai and the Spanish book club of Shanghai to have it illustrated and published. That is how the story transformed itself into a “hardcover dream” come true. They hope that this book and it’s already planned sequels can continue helping to improve the lives of orphans. All of the 100 RMB book price will go to Baobei Foundation. If you would like more information, please email Reyes at rtenciso@yahoo.es.

Author, IÑIGO ORTIZ CASTAÑO, with his two children- youngest one for whom book was written.  

Reyes Teixeria preparing for book promotion