The OC Register: 7,000 students countywide help babies in Japan

FOOTHILL RANCH – About 7,000 Orange County kids helped a local charity group focused on children raise nearly 200 boxes of food, clothing and supplies for babies in Japan.

On Sunday, volunteers from Kids Who Care Foundation organized, sorted and packed boxes at Mercedes-Benz in Foothill Ranch after a two week outreach effort that included students in schools from Lake Forest, Foothill Ranch, Trabuco Canyon, Huntington Beach, Los Alamitos, Anaheim Hills, Fullerton, Irvine, Brea, Costa Mesa and Tustin.

Donations also came from Orange County businesses and individuals. Items collected included diaper bags, baby wipes, formulas, toys, pacifiers, books, baby bottles, blankets, food cans, playing cards, baby clothes, ponchos, socks, toiletries, vitamins and school supplies. The items were picked up by truck from the dealership and schools on Monday. The dealership volunteered their facility as a collection point. Dealership employees also helped pack the trucks on Monday.

The Kids Who Care Foundation seeks to help catastrophically ill children who are hospitalized throughout the United States and around the world.

“When a natural disaster occurs somewhere in the world, the Kids Who Care family of volunteers steps up to donate their time and energies to help the survivors of the natural disasters,” Anisha Shukla, who founded the now international organization in 2004, after her daughter Risha, now 14, was diagnosed with cancer.

Risha Shukla and her younger sister donated more than 50 hours a week to the charity. They speak at civic centers and schools sharing the work that the organization does. In seven years, the group has grown to nearly 1,700 volunteers and has put smiles on at least 1,500 children, Anisha Shukla said.

Anisha Shukla said the work of volunteer Sonia Rastogi’s as the Japan coordinator for the group was critical in getting the project up and running.

The collected items will be put onto a container and shipped to Tokyo, Anisha Shukla said.

Recently, the group embarked on building a children’s play room in a hospital in India. That project is almost completed, Shukla said.