“I just really feel like the Lord led me where I needed to be to be an instrument in his hands because he had a plan for me,” the founder of Dolls of Hope, Sarah Parson, says. “I’m just doing the best to juggle all the things in my life and all the things that he’s asked me to do. He magnifies my efforts every day, and that’s why I’m able to do what I do.”
It’s an experience all too familiar to Sarah Carmichael Parson, a Brigham Young University graduate and Cedar Hills resident.
She turns on the news, devastated at what she sees: innocent children who are victims of war, disasters on the other side of the planet, refugee camps with abysmal living conditions. She feels a personal responsibility to do something to help.
Parson, who has dedicated her life to service and humanitarian work, experienced this scenario in 2004 when a tsunami in Asia left 117,000 dead and millions struggling. She experienced it in 2015 when over a million people had to leave their homes in a refugee crisis. Most recently, she experienced it when she learned about the families who have been separated at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Like it has in the past, her desire to help led to action. That’s why last week Parson joined with a group of friends to package and send 1,229 handmade stuffed dolls and teddy bears to the children who have been separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border.
This shipment is just one of several Parson manages each year. In 2015, Parson created Dolls of Hope, which has teamed up with people around the state, country and world to send over 9,600 handmade, cuddly stuffed toys to children in need all over the globe.