{"id":55489,"date":"2001-01-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2001-01-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/969a71f3-1dfb-11e4-aedf-250bc8c9958e"},"modified":"2001-01-09T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2001-01-09T00:00:00","slug":"969a7204-1dfb-11e4-aedf-250bc8c9958e","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/969a7204-1dfb-11e4-aedf-250bc8c9958e\/","title":{"rendered":"Children&#039;s holiday wishes come true"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An Armenian couple delivered yesterday to some 11 children and their families $3,900 worth of toys as post-holiday gifts that came as a result of a successful New Year&#8217;s party and fundraising  event held at the Diamond Hotel.<\/p>\n<p>During a brief presentation at the Children&#8217;s Developmental Assistance Center in Garapan yesterday, parents and children with disabilities gasped in delight upon receiving the donations that were based on wish lists that the kids themselves enumerated.<\/p>\n<p>Children aged nine months to three years received presents like cribs, car seats, high chairs, strollers, baby clothes, beds, diapers, drawers, bicycles, bags, baby food, milk, and toys, among others.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We always want to help children especially those who are helpless. This is happiness for us when we see other people happy,&#8221; said the Saipan-based couple.<\/p>\n<p>Top of the line toys and children&#8217;s goods purchased from Guam were handed out to the recipients with teeming support from merchandise stores and nonprofit organizations such as the Ayuda Network Inc. and the Interagency Coordinating Council.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is the first time that we have done something like this on the island and it has been very successful. I am not making any promises but if I had the strength again, I would do it again. The support was overwhelming. I have no reason not to do it again, hopefully,&#8221; said Mrs. Balian.<\/p>\n<p>Ayuda Network President and ICC Chair Thomas J. Camacho commended Mr. and Mrs. Balian for their fundraising efforts for the benefit of individuals with disabilities.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think these are people making a difference in our society and making an impact on other families. I believe that people individually through their own personal efforts can truly make a difference and this is where Linda and Victor come in. . .because of their drive to help low income families who have children with developmental disabilities or in the stage of developing some sort of disability. We are all grateful,&#8221; said Mr. Camacho, who is also executive director of the Governor&#8217;s Developmental Disabilities Council. (Marian A. Maraya)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An Armenian couple delivered yesterday to some 11 children and their families $3,900 worth of toys as post-holiday gifts that came as a result of a successful New Year&#8217;s party and fundraising  event held at the Diamond Hotel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}