Timmy Cahill Fund-- Now Open for Donations!

Hi all. I wanted to tell you about a little project that Adam and I are working on in honor of Timmy. We have tried to tell as many people as possible how wonderful the care for Timmy was at the Good Samaritan NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) while he was there. We were so impressed with all of the doctors and nurses that took care of him but also in how nice and accommodating they were to Adam and I as well. On the night that Timmy passed away, the nurses there provided us with a Bereavement Box. Inside was a little teddy bear, some papers that we made hand prints and foot prints on, a memory card that now holds pictures that they took on a digital camera of Timmy, information about grieving, etc. This box that we received is where we now keep the blanket that he was wrapped in while he was in the NICU, his hat that he wore when he was born, and a few other things that we have from the time that he was here. Believe me, when your baby can no longer be here with you, you want a special place to keep all of the things that you DO still have from him that can help you to remember the time that you had together.

Our plan this holiday season is to ask for donations to create even bigger and better Bereavement Boxes for the Good Samaritan NICU. I've been wanting to do something to honor Timmy and have it be something tangible as well so I'm keeping myself busy in a positive way in addition to helping others. We're hoping to help all of the many families of many different backgrounds that are in our situation each year. Some of these families, like ours, are lucky enough to spend a few days with their child, but other families lose their children even prior to birth. Whatever the situation may be, we want to pass on the opportunity for remembrance and healing that our box brought to us.
Here are some of the ideas of items that we'd like to be able to include in our boxes:

-Clay hand print and/or foot print kits so that parents can have molded prints from their child
-Traditional baby books they could read to the babies and then keep such as On The Night You Were Born
-Baby blankets to use and then keep while giving the baby their first bath,(which was an option for us) or to wrap the baby in if they don't have any clothes that they brought for the baby. (This happens to some families if they didn't know they would be delivering that day.)
-Knitted baby hats for the babies
-Journals if the moms wanted to start them
-Disposable cameras
-Build a Bear gift cards for the parents (or parents and siblings) to build a bear in honor of the baby
-Remembrance stuffed animals
-Books on grieving stillborns/late loss/newborns/infants
-Small photo albums
-Information about the Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep photography program which came in to take pictures of Timmy at no cost.
*If you have any other ideas that aren't mentioned above, please email me about those as well.

You might be wondering how you can help us in our cause? We are going to be collecting through a Pay Pal Account that we opened in Timmy's name through this email address: timmycahillfund@yahoo.com. If you know this email address and then join Pay Pal (it is a completely safe way to donate money), then that's all that you need to do. There are several options of how you can pay/donate. This will then enable us to purchase the items above to put the boxes together and then donate to the hospital.

You can follow these steps to sign up for a Pay Pal account if you don't already have one:
1.) Go to paypal.com
2.) Click on "Sign Up" at the top of the page
3.) Click "Get Started" under the "Personal" option
4.) Fill in the required fields with your information
5.) Click "Agree and Create Account"
6.) You can click on the "Not Now" portion of the next "bill me later" screen
7.) Click on "continue" underneath the part that says "Pay with my credit card."
8.) Enter in your credit card information
9.) Click on "Send money"
10.) On the next screen is wher eyou will enter in the email address that you need: timmycahillfund@yahoo.com into the "to:" field
11.) Enter in the amount that you would like to donate
12.) Click on the blue word that says "personal" and click on "other"
13.) On the next screen, you can click on "Send money" and add a personal message if you would like to.

I promise that it's not hard at all to sign up for a Pay Pal account, I just wanted to have all of the steps written out for people just in case they needed help. Please don't feel any pressure to donate. We were just thinking that with this being the first Christmas that he's not with us, that we'd like something positive to come out of it if at all possible. Please feel free to forward this email on to anyone you know that might be interested in helping us remember and honor Timmy.
Thank you so much!
Cara, Adam, Madelyn, & Timmy Cahill