Orphans at Play is celebrating our 1 year anniversary as a non profit 501(c)3 organization!

This past year has been quite successful with the following achieved:

Collected and Delivered 20 suitcases to Vladivostok orphanages and baby homes through our Winter Drive.

Donated minimum 600 tubes of diaper cream to various baby homes in need.

Our New Zealand friends raised $600 dollars for 2 new playpens delivered to Artyem Baby Home.

In our first six months we raised over $5000 dollars and placed 4 new grandmothers for one year.

Delivered new school supplies, television and computer to Kirovsky Orphanage.

Melissa Bridges and Kelley Knoll created an entire Curriculum plan to be implemented in Russia.

Shari Eischens has opened the door to future opportunities with the University of Minnesota.

We could not do this without the help of our incredible supporters, friends, family and our Orphans at Play team. When we began June 2011, we had no idea what to expect but we knew we had passion, drive and a desperate need to help those children we had to leave behind in the baby homes and orphanages who need basic supplies and support in physical development, sensory integration and socioemotional development.

Our team at Orphans at Play: Sabrina Dickenson Turri: Founder/ Executive Director Heather Overstreet: Co-Founder/ Operations Director HunterAnn Booth: Co-Founder/ Marketing Director Jody Garber: Director of the Helping Hands Humanitarian Project Melissa Bridges: Director of Development Kelley Knoll: Research and Development Shari Eischens: Resource Development Specialist

We also give a special thanks to our partner Vladmission in Russia who has helped us in many of our achievements.

In the coming year we look forward to bringing together New Partnerships, introducing our Medical Board, Implementing our Curriculum into the Training Phase in Vladivostok, Placing more Grandmothers into new baby homes and orphanages, answering the request for much needed Shoes for the children and building a greater foundation for Orphans at Play.

Your continued support gives so much to the children of Russia. Russia is in the top three countries Americans choose to adopt from with 1,079 adoptions in 2010. Of those adoptions 5% of the children are under 1 year old and 77% of the children are ages 1-4 years old. This is a small number given that there are an estimated 700,000 orphans in Russia.

700,000 orphans. It is just the beginning in our Orphans at Play Journey.