The Shadow Buddies Foundation is a children's charity dedicated to providing support and knowledge to children with severe illnesses and disabilities. The foundation accomplishes this through unique programs designed to enhance the lives of children and adults by fostering compassion and awareness of differences with our line of 36 condition-specific “Shadow Buddy” dolls. Crafted from muslin and carefully researched to represent a child’s medical or emotional condition, Shadow Buddies offer seriously ill or medically challenged children the companionship of a friend “just like me."
Shadow Buddies was founded by Marty Postlethwait, a mother of a child born with multiple congenital birth defects. Her son Miles, who is now 35, has undergone more than 50 surgeries, and together, they have spent countless nights in the hospital. Shadow Buddies strives to enhance the lives of families in communities, all ethnic backgrounds, for people of all ages. When addressing the psycho-social needs of children and adults, the Buddies are supporting the well-being of individuals, allowing communities to have a hands-on teaching tool to elevate their level of care and treatment.
Pictured below is Marty, giving some history and background information to one of two sessions that met at the Shadow Buddies warehouse for our June service project.
We were given instructions on how we were going to help.
The Buddies needed some clothes! So we had a table for dressing buddies that were going to a camp. They wore either shorts or a skirt and a Shadow Buddies t-shirt. Some of the buddies we worked on will be going to Camp Courage for kids with cancer. The other buddies will be going to Camp Barnabas that serves all conditions of children including, seizures, vision, orthopedic kids and cerebral palsy.
We also helped cut fleece for these fun flip flops! Our older kids and adults cut nice, neat strips and then we tied them onto the straps of the flip flops. These will also be going to Camp Courage and/or Camp Barnabus.
Some of our very youngest KindCrafters learned how to tie at this event!
Another station involved putting gowns on Angel Buddies. These buddies were dressed in gowns so we got them dressed and also got to do their hair!
The Angel Buddies will be going to support groups who have lost a loved one, both young and old and pediatric patients themselves.
The most popular station by far was the hair dressing table. All the girl buddies had pigtails-some traditional, some braided, and some bubble hair. I even saw one girl giving her buddy messy buns.
They tied the pigtails with small elastics and then chose ribbon of their choice to match their angel gown.
Marty let us in on some Shadow Buddies inside scoop! They will be releasing a new Shadow Buddy dog soon-Gus!!! We are absolutely positive that Gus will add so much love and comfort to the recipients!
It was fun to see three generations, all spending time together, helping others. At KindCraft, we LOVE seeing grandparents joining in on the fun!
As a recently diagnosed Type 1 Diabetic, I was curious if they had a diabetic buddy. Sure enough they did! The details in these buddies are incredible. Look at the finger prick marks on the hand from testing blood sugar. Seeing this gave me a bit of hope and comfort seeing someone "just like me", so I am convinced that these buddies are providing so much love for all the recipients.
We love meeting new KindCraft families too! These sweet sisters worked hard dressing many buddies!
Some families even make it part of their monthly schedule to attend as many KindCraft events as they can and we are always so happy to see their smiley faces every month.
Thank you all for making our world a kinder place! Be sure to become a member of KindCraft (FREE!) to stay up to date on the latest news and to be able to register for future events.