{rice, beans & love}

This is it…the blog where I ask for things. Take a deep breath with me and understand that we are working very hard here, we just need some help to accomplish some things that need to be done. We have spent the last few days discussing our biggest needs and praying about them. Today, we have them all written out and we want to be as transparent as possible as we tell you all about them.

#1 – Improve the care for our babies. We currently have 4 babies in the orphanage, but two with us temporarily. We want to improve the baby area as soon as possible since we have been seeing lots of sick babies come to the gate, who are high maintenance, sick and special needs. The improvements we want seen done are tiling the room, having a sink installed, building a cemented & enclosed playground area, buying climbing equipment and installing two safety gates. We expect the total costs for complete improvement on the baby area to be $3,500

#2 – Right now all of the other children live out of suitcases or a community pile of clothes. We want to buy lockers for each child as an opportunity to teach them ownership, responsibility and give them a sense of identity. We need to buy 6 locker systems for $500 each, total of $3,000

#3 – We are feeding the children three times a day but the diet is very basic. We would like to increase the food budget $1,000 a month to be able to add fruit and more meat.

#4 – To continue to improve child care we need 2 more nannies, 2 part time staff and one more full time cook. Adding a total of $500 a month to the budget to be able to pay their salaries.

#5 – Some of the children need new beds and to give them new mattresses and have some new bunk beds built we need a total of $1,200

#6 – There are other property improvements to be made, for example some of the children’s rooms need new screens installed on the windows and doors, we expect $2,000 to make these improvements.

#7 – Lastly, Tytoo needs an office space to be able to keep up with the bookwork. We have the space prepared, but need the supplies (new desk, filing cabinet, etc) asking for $800 to finish the office.

Ughh…you can take a breath out now! We realize this is a lot and it’s hard asking for this much money, but it is our needs. We hope you can are called led to help us.

Please send donations to
205 Old Mill Lane
Rock Rapids, Iowa 51246

Made to Touch of Hope and add memos if there is something specific you want to give to!

Bondye beni ou (God bless you)

And a deep thanks from all of us here working for Touch of Hope and Tytoo Gardens for your prayers and support.