Woman helps ill children feel loved

LOVE FOR A YOUNG PERSON- - A child at Childrens Hosital Los Angeles receives a gift of comfort from Just Mom, an organization that provides a stuffed dog named OwieBowWowie to hospitalized children. The toy comes with a bandage, coloring book, blanket and birth certificate. Founded by Thousand Oaks resident Gina Gippner-Woods, Just Mom needs donations in order to continue its charitable work. A lonely little girl in a hospital inspired a Thousand Oaks resident to provide comfort to thousands of ill children over the last two decades.

It was 1991 when Gina Gippner-Woods was admitted into a crowded hospital. There was no room for her in the adult ward, so she was put in a room with a little girl recovering from brain surgery.

The youngster had no one coming to visit her, but a warmhearted nurse gave her a stuffed puppy with a torn ear. The little girl rejected the broken animal.

"It's not broken. It's got an 'owie' like you. It's your OwieBowWowie," said Gippner- Woods, and she took the stuffed puppy and bandaged its head.

That was the beginning of the nonprofit group Just Mom. Since then, Gippner-Woods has provided more than 2,000 quilts and stuffed animals for hospitalized children.

Currently she's providing the gifts to kids at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles.

"These toys are really needed. There are 1,000 new children coming to Childrens Hospital Los Angeles every month. I can't keep up with it," she said.

Last month Gippner-Woods supplied 175 stuffed dogs.

She keeps the dogs in a warehouse. When people purchase them, she delivers them to children in the hospital in need of comfort.

"I hear from so many people how when their child was in the hospital they noticed another child there by themselves with no family for comfort," she said.

For a donation of $35, a gift set that includes a 12-inch OwieBowWowie plush toy with a removable bandage, a 24-page coloring book, a 33-by-26-inch blanket, a personalized birth certificate and a carrying case is hand-delivered to a child. Two gift sets cost $60 and 12 cost $300. To purchase gift sets, make checks payable to OBWFF and mail to Just Mom, Inc., P.O. Box 6533, Thousand Oaks, CA 91359.

About 85 percent of donations go toward the toy kits. The remainder pays for administrative costs, she said.

"I don't know how to medically make a child well, but I know how to mother them and make them feel love," she said.

For more information, go to www.justmom.net.