Hairy Crab Charities

Over 2011, the funds raised by Hairy Crab Charities have continued with our mission of helping kids who really need help.

Over the last year, our primary efforts have focused on three programs:

Half The Sky and China Care: Hairy Crab Charities funded a portion of the China Care facility in Beijing. This facility takes in kids from orphanages all over China and cares for them both before and after they have critical surgeries. Well trained nurses and care givers take care of the kids while they prep for surgeries. They also look after the kids after surgeries and make sure they are well before they go back to the orphanages or before they are adopted. Our donation funded the operations of a portion of the facility and helped to buy some needed equipment. For more information on this program, please have a look at: www.chinacare.org

Half The Sky Luoyang Infant Nurture program: Hairy Crab Charities funded the set up and operations of an Infant Nurture Program associated with orphanages in Luoyang, China. Half the Sky has done an amazing job of building and sustaining well run orphanages all around China. As a next step, the organizers got the permission of the Chinese authorities to set up a nurturing program for the orphans so that they can learn and function well as they enter mainstream society. Nurses, teachers and caregivers all provide a nurturing environment that will help the children get ready for life. For more information on this program, please have a look at www.halfthesky.org.

Heart To Heart Shanghai. Hairy Crab Charities funded critical surgeries for 4 critically ill children whose families would not have otherwise been able to afford the surgeries. Heart to Heart cares for the children pre and post surgery and offers critically ill children a chance at survival. For more information on this great group, have a look at: www.heart2heartshanghai.net

The 2011 Crab was a great event and we raised over RMB300,000. We will work hard to make sure that these funds help kids who would like not be able to get help elsewhere.

In May 2009, Half the Sky, in partnership with China Care and the Ministry of Civil Affairs opened the Half the Sky China Care Home.  This facility provides a caring home for medically fragile orphans who will undergo life saving surgeries.  Hairy Crab Charites is proud to support this effort by sponsoring the Special Care Nursery for the home's youngest residents.  Click here for more on the Half the Sky China Care Home.

Peruse a wonderful thank you email from Half the Sky.

Though no one knows the exact numbers, there are many tens of thousands of girls and boys living in Chinese welfare institutions. They are newborns and toddlers, they are preschoolers, they are children with profound special needs, and they are older children. All will grow up with the legacy of having lost the love of their birth families. Half the Sky offers the love and concern of family for thousands of orphaned children in China who have lost theirs. Half the Sky was created in order to enrich the lives and enhance the prospects for orphaned children in China. They establish and operate infant nurture and preschool programs, provide personalized learning for older children and establish loving permanent family care and guidance for children with disabilities. Since their founding in 2000, Half the Sky's programs have reached thousands of China's orphans. It is Half the Sky's goal to ensure that every orphaned child has a caring adult in her life and a chance at a bright future. Learn more about Half the Sky's work at http://www.halfthesky.org .

Heart to Heart Shanghai provides support and financial assistance to needy Chinese children who require heart surgery to repair their congenital heart defects. Since it's founding in August 2003, Heart to Heart Shanghai has received donations from socially responsible individuals, groups and corporations which have been applied either to their Heart Surgery Sponsorship program and to provide assistance to the children and their families whom we support.

The average cost of a child's hole in the heart operation at the Shanghai Thoracic (Chest) Hospital is RMB 25,000. In comparison to the cost of similar operations in many overseas countries, this is a very modest cost. However, many families in China, particularly those living in rural communities are not fully covered by medical benefits and are unable to raise the amount of RMB 25,000 to pay for such a life-saving operation for their child. Heart to Heart has helped several hundred children receive life saving heart surgery. Learn more about Heart to Heart Shanghai's work at http://heart2heartshanghai.net.

See the kids whose surgeries have been sponsored by Hairy Crab Charities on our Heart 2 Heart Kids page.