How Sponsors Help Care for Every Child in Need

Phil Littleton, Holt’s president and CEO, shares a message with child sponsors about the holistic care and services their monthly gifts make possible for children in need.

I want to tell you a story about a girl named Ju who was left at the gates of an orphanage in China.

Like so many children in orphanage care around the world, Ju has special medical needs. She was diagnosed with cleft palate, and had a problem with her ear canals. When she came into care, she was just a month old and so weak that she needed to be fed through a nasal feeding tube.

Ju urgently needed cleft palate surgery. But she was far too weak to withstand the stress of an operation. That’s when Holt, and Holt sponsors like you, stepped up to help.

Ju urgently needed cleft palate surgery. But she was far too weak to withstand the stress of an operation. That’s when Holt, and Holt sponsors like you, stepped up to help.

As a sponsor, you provide amazing, life-changing care for your sponsored child. But do you know that because of your generous donations, you also make it possible to sustain programs that care for children in all kinds of vulnerable circumstances?

You support feeding programs and campaigns to deliver routine vaccinations to children living in impoverished, rural communities. You help provide prenatal care for struggling moms-to-be. You cover costs so children can attend free early education programs. You help parents learn job skills so they can provide for their children. And by supporting programs like Peace House — Holt’s medical foster home in China — you help provide urgently needed surgeries and medical care for children like Ju.

Holistic Care for Children

Ju was six months old when she moved from her orphanage to Holt’s Peace House. She was still extremely weak. But with specialized training that you helped provide, Peace House caregivers carefully nurtured Ju for two months until she was strong enough to undergo surgery. In August 2019, she underwent a successful surgery to repair her cleft palate. She then returned to Peace House to heal from her surgery.

“Under the good care of Peace House, Ju has made rapid progress,” our staff reports. “When she first arrived at Peace House in June 2019, she could only turn over, but by July she would crawl, in August she would sit alone, in September she would stand with support and in November Ju would try to walk on her own.”

Your gifts also helped provide hearing aids for Ju, which opened up a whole new world for her. “Her facial expressions became more vivid, and she looked around curiously every day and began to babble,” our staff writes.

Your gifts also helped provide hearing aids for Ju, which opened up a whole new world for her. “Her facial expressions became more vivid, and she looked around curiously every day and began to babble,” our staff writes.

As our programs staff has explained to me, the post-operative care that Peace House provides is absolutely critical. When children return to the orphanage right after surgery, they may not get the care they need to recover. They can develop dangerous infections and may never fully heal.

After she recovered at Peace House, we arranged for Ju to move to a group home with just five other children. This is a much more family-like environment than an orphanage, and a much better place for Ju to stay while we work to find her a loving adoptive family. Group homes are another great program that you help make possible through your monthly sponsorship.

Because of you and generous people like you, Ju has come a long way since she was a tiny, sick newborn found on the steps of an orphanage. Through the many programs you support as a sponsor, Ju received the holistic, nurturing care she needed. And soon, she will be able to join a permanent family — our ultimate goal for every child in our programs.

Thank you for making this kind of care possible for Ju, for your sponsored child, and for every child who comes to us in need.

Phil Littleton | President & CEO, Child Sponsor