It was a few years ago when Julie Gray and Mary Wright-McCourt decided to turn their grief into something positive.
That’s when the idea for Angie’s Babies came about.
It was 2018 when Gray’s grandmother Angie Clark died after her 15-year battle with Alzheimer’s.
Gray had become a regular caregiver for her grandmother at the nursing home during that time.
“Alzheimer’s takes away everything,” Gray said. “It starts with your memories and then it progresses and takes away your ability to talk or walk and then eventually, it kills you. As my grandmother got further into the disease, she was having more bad days than good. She was feeling agitated.”
Because her grandmother couldn’t talk, someone recommended that Gray and her mother give Clark a baby doll.
The next thing that happened surprised them.
“When we did that, she just lit up,” Gray said. “There was a peace and comfort that really came over her that was indescribable. We watched her take this doll and cradle it and loved it and that happened whether it was a good or a bad day.”
After Clark died four years ago, Gray teamed up with Wright-McCourt for a cause.
Wright-McCourt had lost her father to Alzheimer’s.
Both women had met up at the nursing home before their loved ones passed away and they came up with the idea of giving baby dolls to nursing homes.
“My co-founder Mary Wright-McCourt, her dad was in the same facility that my grandmother was in,” Gray said. “We just took care of all those residents. Her father passed away and then a few months later, I lost my grandmother. We were lost. We were used to being caregivers and being at the nursing home four or five days a week to nothing.”
That project is called Angie’s Babies, named in honor of Gray’s grandmother.
Every year on Mother’s Day, Gray and Wright-McCourt will take the baby dolls that have been collected and deliver them to Alzheimer’s patients (both men and women).
“It came about through not being a caregiver anymore and just being lost,” Wright-McCourt said on the project getting started. “I guess it came through grief. We used to be in the nursing home four-plus days a week. We were lost and didn’t have anyone to take care of any longer and I thought, I needed to turn my grief into something positive and I approached Julie and we decided to start Angie’s Babies and she said that’s a great idea. So we turned that around and felt we would do something good in honor of our loved ones.”
Since then, over 6,000 dolls have been donated.
The project doesn’t just include dolls. On Father’s Day, they’ll also deliver stuffed puppies or dolls to men to honor Mary’s dad in a project called Jerry’s Puppies.
“We don’t discriminate,” Wright-McCourt said. “If there’s a man that wants (a baby doll), we’ll hand him one too.”
This year, Gray says they’re hoping to give another 500-600 dolls.
“We prefer the dolls that you can get from Walmart,” Gray said. “They cost $11 per doll. Or a puppy. We do stuffed animals as well. We do a big stuffed animal push for Jerry’s Puppies on Father’s Day. Men seem to react more strongly to a puppy than a baby.”
Gray said that the more she and Wright-McCourt got into this journey, the more they realized that the memories are made when someone is a young adult or parent never leave.
“Although (Clark) couldn’t articulate who I was or who my mom was, she knew it was a safe love and safe feeling,” Gray said. “There was one day where I walked in and she had been nonverbal for well over a year at that point. Everyone was surrounding her and she was playing patty cake with the doll and talking clear with the hand movements and everything. That feeling of a mom never leaves.”
Wright-McCourt talked about the reactions they’ll see when placing the dolls in the hands of those who want one.
“Whenever we place the dolls in the ladies’ arms, it is the instant look of love and it triggers a memory to a time when they first became a mom,” Wright-McCourt said. “They grab the doll and cradle it. They look at it and hold it and we feel like it triggers a memory when they were first a mom and first had babies.”
While Gray said the main delivery is Mother’s Day for Angie’s Babies and Father’s Day for Jerry’s Puppies, they’ll operate year-round.
“We do it all year,” Gray said. “Our facilities know that if baby dolls get lost which happens more than you think, or new residents move in, we deliver throughout the year. We also work with some partners in our home health agencies as well so we can deliver the dolls to the ladies at home with their caregiver.”
For more information about Angie’s Babies, visit the Facebook page at tinyurl.com/24uhf6yd
