WADSWORTH, Ohio — Jan householder is waiting on the pediatric floor of MetroHealth Medical Center .
"Getting ready to give doll 70,000 to a special little girl, she told us.
You heard that correctly: 70,000 dolls -- made by Jan and her team at The Giving Doll, a nonprofit that's brought comfort and joy to children around the world since 2006.
At the giving doll workshop in Wadsworth, every stitch, and detail are made with love -- something from which The Giving Doll was born.
"I started with 15 volunteers and we started making them for Katherine," Jan said.
Katherine is Paula McVey's daughter, and the first recipient of a giving doll.
"In 2005, (Katherine) was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor called a brainstem glioma," Paula said. "Jan wanted to know what she could do for Katherine. And Katherine said, 'I want to do something for the other children,'" Paula said.
Jan began making dolls for Katherine so she could pass them out to other sick children. In fact, she never even kept one for herself.
"After she passed, Jan did make me a doll out of Katherine's clothes, and it sits up in my son's room, and I would never trade it for the world," Paula said.
In Katherine's honor, The Giving Doll grew into a worldwide movement, where children in 64 countries with illness, differences, or loss, could having something to all their own forever.
"It's amazing, you know, a doll, something so simple and you give it to a child and they just hug it, you know, that's all the difference in the world. Just to see him hug it," Paula said.
The outreach of Giving Doll is far reaching. Since it's beginning, 15 other chapters formed across the U.S. Volunteers know the mission is delicate and important.
"You don't have to be incredibly talented in order to participate. You have to be able to do one small thing. Maybe you do nothing but put clothes on the doll," Paula said.
No matter how you choose to help -- you're making a difference, in the way Jan did at MetroHealth Medical Center, with the 70,000th doll to bring a smile to a child's face.
"Do you want to hug her? Here ya go," Jan said to the child and recipient of the milestone doll. "You make sure you take good care of her and love her a whole bunch?"
After nearly two decades of compassion and dedication, Jan says she can't imagine not doing this work ... it's her destiny.
"I mean, people say, 'Aren't you tired?' You've been doing it for almost 18 years. Aren't you tired of it?'" Jan said of people asking her. "Yes, I'm tired. But then you think of a child. If I quit, that child doesn't get a doll. That child may be the only thing that they have to hug. You know, some of these homeless kids, they don't have anything. Okay, I quit? No, I don't. No, I'm not quitting on these kids."
For more information on The Giving Doll, click HERE.
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