Video: Giving Grace Donates to Hermitage Gardens

On Thursday afternoon, Giving Grace gave 12 baby dolls to residents of Hermitage Gardens making this their second distribution. Last month, 25 baby dolls were given to residents of Oxford Health and Rehabilitation.

Brooke Pittman, program services director at Hermitage Gardens, said that Alzheimer’s care patients, the recipients of the baby dolls, often revert back to a stage in their lives when they cared for their own children, naturally searching for something to nurture, she said.
“By receiving a baby doll, they have the opportunity to care for someone and to love someone,” Pittman said. “A lot of these women named their babies after their own daughters, so even if their children are grown, they get to take their ‘babies’ back to their rooms to have with them.”
Joanne Zuidema, a recipient who was unaware of the project’s name, named her baby “Grace,” as she squeezed the doll with a smile across her face and tears rolling down her cheeks.
“She’s so soft, and cuddly, and beautiful,” Zuidema said. “It just looks like her name. Grace is such a comforting word.”
For more information on the Giving Grace project, read How a Daughter’s Act of Kindness Inspired the Giving Grace Project.

By Sarah McCullen
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