Tough As Nails to host first community workshop

Tough As Nails will conduct its first community workshop called “Share the Love” Saturday Feb. 8, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. at the Rosalia Middle School gym to assemble 60 activity kits for hospital donation.

“This event is not limited to Rosalia members and we hope to encourage people from other towns to attend the free event,” said Caryn Bothman, one of the founders of Tough As Nails.

The activity kits will be donated to Sacred Heart Children's Hospital including the child psychiatric ward in Spokane.

Kits that will be created on Feb. 8 are new to the organization and will be announced at the “Share the Love” event.

Bothman said she is currently working on reaching out to other hospitals to extend the reach of Tough As Nails.

The nonprofit was created by Bothman, her three daughters and husband in 2018 to honor their six-year-old cousin who battled Acute Myeloid Leukemia.

“Our mission is to create and donate craft, activity and care kits to hospitalized kids with an emphasis on community involvement,” Bothman said. “We invite people to be involved in whichever capacity best suits their desire to serve, whether it's financially, donations of supplies or gifts of time.”

Last year Tough As Nails donated 11 filled backpacks, 40 filled pencil pouches and reusable gift bags and 1,070 origami crane kits.

Each kit also includes a handwritten wish. This is a small message that gives encouragement, comfort and support to those who receive these kits.

Bothman said this year the goal is to donate 50-100 kits per month.

Behind the scenes of Tough As Nails is a youth team which consists of eight girls from Tekoa and Rosalia. This youth team helps create kit contents, design social media posts and organize and lead events.

With this being the first community workshop, previous origami crane kits were assembled by Tough As Nails visiting classrooms and different organizations.

“We are hoping to host either community workshops or smaller workshops as requested by various groups, organizations, or classrooms,” Bothman said.

She added if anyone is interested in helping assemble kits as an organization, club, group or class, they can contact Bothman by email at toughasnails@tankits.org, through Instagram at tankits6, on Facebook at Tough As Nails or through the nonprofit's website tankits.org/contact.