The Giving Doll makes handcrafted dolls for children in need

Santa’s elves have nothing on the ladies in the basement of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Ronkonkoma.

More than 50 volunteers gather there every Thursday morning year-round to make Raggedy Ann style dolls to donate to children in New York, nationwide and overseas who are sick, in foster care, in domestic violence centers or are victims of crisis events such as Haiti’s earthquake.

“We make the dolls from scratch. I have it set up almost like a workshop,” says Maureen Ennis of Ronkonkoma, founder and program director of the New York chapter of The Giving Doll, a nationwide organization. Seated around long tables, the volunteers at each station have specific assembly-line tasks — either cut out the patterns, sew the dolls, paint the faces, stuff in the filling, use a miniature loom to create yarn hair or dress the dolls in colorful clothing.

The Long Island group has made more than 18,000 dolls sent to more than 150 organizations in 31 states and 21 countries since 2011, Ennis says. Locally, dolls have gone to Stony Brook University Hospital, Cohen Children’s Medical Center, Camp Good Grief for children who have lost a parent or sibling, The Child Advocacy Center for children who are victims of sexual abuse, and others. “It gives the children something to hold on to. They feel the love the dolls were made with,” says Andrea Ramos-Topper, division director for The Child Advocacy Center of the EAC Network in Central Islip and Riverhead.

Tianna Balkam, now 17, of Lake Grove, was a recipient of a Giving Doll when she was about 6 years old and had to have bone graft surgery to correct a cleft palate. She still has it. “The doll was going to give me courage and keep me company,” she says.

GROUP HOPES TO GROW BIGGER

Ennis, 61, who works as an administrative assistant to the director of St. Joseph’s religious school, launched the chapter with seven friends in her Long Island kitchen; it now has 300 volunteers and two satellite locations in Lake Grove and East Setauket.

Of the 70,000 dolls that have been made at 12 chapters nationally since The Giving Doll launched in Ohio in 2006, the New York chapter is responsible for a quarter of the total. “They’re just an amazing group,” says Jan Householder of Ohio, founder and executive director of The Giving Doll. “They all work together and have such a heart for giving.”

While every 18-inch-tall Giving Doll’s body is the same, every boy or girl doll is individualized — different clothing, different hair color, different skin tones and its own name — and Ennis says she expects to hit the 20,000-doll mark for her group by the end of next year. Each doll comes with a crocheted or quilted blanket and a carrying tote.

Ennis' chapter is supported by fundraising and by donations of fabric, yarn, muslin and fiber fill. In 2018, the group expanded by creating a complementary Friendship Doll, designed for adults who have dementia, serious illness or are lonely.

“I’m thrilled by where we are and where it’s going. Do I want it to grow bigger?” Ennis asks. “Absolutely.”

NO SPECIAL SKILLS NEEDED

Volunteers typically arrive about 9:30 a.m. on Thursdays and stay until 1 p.m. They might have a bagel or coffee or homemade baked goods from the breakfast table, and then they get to work. Volunteers don’t need special skills — they can always sit at the stuffing table.

That’s where Lori Weber, 60, a stay-at-home mother from Nesconset, started 11 years ago. “I didn’t sew — which I do now. I didn’t crochet — which I do now,” she says. At the beginning she said, “I guess I could put stuffing in. That I could do.”

Adults with special needs from area day programs also help by stuffing dolls and decorating the cloth totes to hold the dolls and their blankets. “We like to help integrate our population into the community,” says Nick Rothe, lead day habitation specialist for the Association for Children with Down syndrome. Stuffing the dolls helps them with fine motor skills as well, he says.

FROM STRANGERS TO FRIENDS

Volunteers typically sit at the same table each week, and they say they have met and made dear friends. Weber has been sitting at the table for the past 11 years with volunteers Linda Kluhsmeier, 72, of Fort Salonga, who retired from work in accounts receivable, Carole Cheskay, 77, of West Sayville, who worked in accounts payable, and Louise Cordingley, 85, a retired clerical worker from Oakdale.

Their job is jack-of-all-trades, perfecting the finished dolls; they call themselves “the cleanup crew.” In the process, they’ve bonded by sharing stories of their lives; now they also meet up beyond the basement.

“We go to lunch, we’ll meet at the park, we text and phone call. We stay late at the meeting and keep gabbing. The meeting is over, and you can’t kick us out,” Weber says. Newcomer Lisa Haggerty, 60, of Holtsville, says she was lucky to join that table. “You welcomed me,” she says.

Volunteers say they love contributing their personal touch to do something for others. “You give a child a doll and they’re so thrilled, they’re so happy,” says volunteer Karen Fucci, 72, of Nesconset, a retired school bus driver whose role is dressing the dolls. “They’ll take it out of the bag, they’re hugging it, they’re sleeping with it. They feel comforted.”

By Beth Whitehouse

beth.whitehouse@newsday.comBethWhitehouse1

Beth Whitehouse writes about families, parenting and great things to do with the kids on Long Island. She’s been a Newsday editor and shared a 1997 Newsday staff Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800.