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Show Quilts made for 'nobody's babies ' By JAMS CARTER Clipper Correspondent FRUIT HEIGHTS It was just about one year ago that Jayna Powers and Kathy Jensen, both of Fruit Heights, saw a segment on ABC'S "2020" that touched their hearts and convinced them to go to Romania to adopt "nobody's babies. ' Romania was under communist rule for about 50 years. The Ceausescu government had a goal of increasing Romania's population from 23 million to 30 million by the year 2000. Beginning in 1966, there was a campaign which made pregnancy a state policy. Women up to the age of 45 were examined for signs of pregnancy and if the test was positive, the government followed the progress of the pregnancy to determine de-termine if the woman had the baby. Contraceptions were not even allowed into the country, and abortions abor-tions were prohibited unless a woman had four children or was over the age of 40. Violators of the family planningabortion law were subject to five to 10 years in prison. Women who did not have children paid a celibacy tax of up to 10 percent per-cent of their monthly salaries. Upon his assassination in December 1989, Ceausescu's 15-year 15-year dictatorship toppled, leaving a legacy of poverty, denial and despair. The revolution exposed to the Romanian people and to the outside world children's institutions with inadequate staffing, dilapidated buildings with little heat, limited food and clothing for the children and little medical equipment that dated to the 1950s. There are now thousands of babies and children in these institutions. Eight weeks ago, with the support sup-port of their children and husbands, Powers, who has six children of her own and Jensen, who has four children, started their paperwork necessary to allow them to travel to Romania and adopt with the immigration im-migration office in Salt Lake City. There is a tremendous amount of red tape involved They must be cleared through the FBI, and all paper work must be cleared before they can leave for Romania. At the price of about $10,000 and leaving their families for probably a minimum of six weeks, Powers and Jensen have no guarantee of coming back with babies. But their hearts were touched as they saw the hundreds hun-dreds of uncared for, physically and emotionally starving children shown on "2020." They knew they had to do what they could to help even a few of the children. Powers hopes to get two babies or children, and Jensen is hoping for one. About the same time the two moms started their paperwork, some sixth grade students and their teachers at Sam Morgan Elementary Elemen-tary School in Fruit Heights saw updated Romanian baby segments on "2020." They wanted to do something to help too. After much thought and brainstorming, they decided to make quilts, since there was little heat in the orphanages. Under the spearhead of sixth grade teacher Sue Ann DeVol, all of the sixth grade classes and one fifthsixth fif-thsixth mixed class hand drew and painted quilt squares for eight baby quilts. It took about six weeks of students, teachers and parents working work-ing together during their recesses, lunch hours, before and after school to make the blocks, then piece them together. The moms then put a backing on them and the children quilted them with yarn. They have produced eight beautiful beau-tiful baby quilts which Powers and Jensen will take to Romania. Students at Farmington Junior High School are involved in fund raisers to raise money to help the babies. Powers and Jensen will take the money and buy basic needs and medical supplies to take with them. Because they can only take two 70-pound suitcases each, they are limited in what they can take as supplies for the children. |