The Gift of Gracie

We have adopted "The Gift of Gracie" as our flagship charity and a primary focus of most of our fund raising activities.

The Gift of Gracie organization (www.GiftOfGracie.com) provides warm, literacy-rich environments that foster a love of reading, while adding comfort, escape, and entertainment to Children's Hospital of Denver patients.

The primary focus of The Belmar Kiwanis Club in support of Gift of Gracie is to raise money to:

> Purchase, assemble and deliver bookshelves.

> Acquire and stock these bookshelves with high quality Usborne Literacy children's books

> Provide volunteers to the various reading programs Gift of Gracie is establishing at the new Children's Hospital.

Please click here for a Gift of Gracie Brochure that outlines the entire program.

If you would like to become personally involved and support our program, there are several ways you can help.  For instance, you could:

Personally donate money to our The Gift of Gracie project.  Donations

Donate some of your time in our reading program, please - eMail Margy Greer

Become a Business Sponsor of our club to support our Gift of Gracie project - eMail Don Scanga

Assist in assembling and delivering our bookshelves - eMail Mike Shaw

We hope that you consider helping us support the Gift of Gracie program which we believe will touch so many children of our community.

The following is a picture of our very first "proto-type" bookshelf we delivered to Children's Hospital in August of 2008.

We selected this model after detailed discussions with the hospital to determine the best size, shape, safety requirements and design criteria that best fit thier new decor. 

Several of our members searched the internet high and low for for the best place to purchase them.  They are shipped to our local Lakewood PakMail store (also a member of our club).  We purchase the toy on top (an idea of one of our members) separately.

When all the pieces of the puzzle are in place, our members assemble them, install the toy, mount the plaque that thanks the people/businesses who donated for that particular shelf, and happily deliver them to Children's Hospital. 

As of 9/1/2008 we have raised over $4,000 towards our Gift of Gracie project which should allow us to purchase 15 additional bookshelfs.