Custom Parent Doll by Hearts and Heroes – Perfect for Comforting Your Military Kid
Military kids have service member parents who are frequently away from home. Training, work-ups, and deployments that take mom or dad away from home are some of the common stressors on military kids. Having tools in place, like a deployment parent doll that looks mom or dad is a great way to help comfort a military child.
Recently I came across an amazing mom who is an Army Veteran. She saw a need in her own children for something that would comfort them in her absence. She made her dreams a reality in the creation of Hearts and Heroes which offers custom made and personalized parent dolls for children that have a loved one in the line of duty.
Our Customized Military Doll
My kids have loved our Hearts and Heroes doll. My husband is in the Navy and our Sailor II military doll looks just like him in his cammys! It even has his name patch on the chest.
My spouse has been away for several weeks on a training exercise and its been interesting to watch my kids hang out with “Dad Doll” (as they call him). Our toddler likes to watch Cookie Monster with our Hearts and Heroes parent doll just like she does with Dad and she shows him pictures in her favorite books. Her brother, who is 7 years old, has really taken to our Hearts and Heroes military dad doll. He likes to have him go on car rides, reads books with him, and tucks him in at night.
Our Hearts and Heroes military parent doll has definitely helped to provide comfort for these two kids while their dad is away.
The Story and the Veteran Behind the Hearts and Heroes Parent Doll
My name is Samantha; I am a Police Officer and U.S. Army Veteran (82ND AIRBORNE), along with my full-time job of being a wife and mother of three. My husband and I decided to create Hearts and Heroes dolls so they can serve as a learning tool, a memento, or even your child’s close friend. My husband and I go away constantly at all hours of the day, and we wanted to make something that we could give our children to hold and think of us, a comfort piece.
Our goal is to also inform young children what we do as public safety and military. It is not only about carrying a weapon and catching bad people, but we are also much more. I want our young children to be informed and know that they can grow up to be whatever they want to be. I hope to do all of this along with bridging the gap between our Public Safety and the Community.
Walking through the Army Exchange (PX) you would hope to find something that you could get your child in lieu of a long field training or deployment. Something that may comfort them while you are gone! The option I always came across was a teddy bear in uniform. As nice as those maybe it was not something I felt I could truly give my child and say hold this and think of me. I started thinking of what I could make to mimic myself and my husband, but life happens, and my project/idea took a back seat.
Fast forward I left active duty at the end of 2016 and became a police officer in Michigan. I graduated from the academy at the end of 2017 and in 2018 I lost my partner in a training accident. I have been recovering ever since. We train that things may happen, but you never think it will happen to you. At the time my partner had a 4 year old daughter and my heart hurt terribly for her. It was a terrible situation, but I would constantly picture myself or my husband being the one dropping our kids off to daycare and never coming back to pick them up.
Immediately I began to work on my business, because I knew that I wanted to do something for my partner’s daughter “Nayla”. My idea for a doll to mimic a loved one came back into play. In 2021, I launched Hearts and Heroes through Kickstarter.
Hearts and Heroes is a for profit company, however we set aside 5% of sales to go into our Hearts and Heroes Project. This fund helps us to send dolls to families that lost a loved one in the line of duty throughout the year. In 2021 through our sales and donations we were able to send out over 50 dolls. I will never be able to bring a loved one back, but by creating a doll to mimic the loved one I hope to give those children a memento. A comfort piece to know that regardless of what happened that loved one will always be with them.
Options for Your Hearts and Heroes Parent Doll
Our parent dolls are standard. You can choose a hair color and coordinating skin tone.
Example our blonde dolls come with fair skin and our brunette dolls come with tan skin. Eye colors are standard brown.
We currently offer personalized military, public safety, and medical dolls. There are Marine, Soldier and Sailor uniforms. We recently added pilot uniforms and flight attendant uniforms. We also have uniforms in the colors blue, black, gray, green, tan, and brown that can be customized. With this option you can mimic a specific uniform. We can add your department patch and other personalized features to these uniforms. If we have the colors and you have an idea we can create it!
Note: Like other companies we have been impacted by shipping and manufacturing delays; it has been hard to stay stocked so this causes customers to have to wait a few weeks for a restock. We recently opened the option to pre-order through our site. This way you are guaranteed to receive your doll in 4-5 weeks and not have to wait for a restock.
Donate to the Hearts and Heroes Project to Send a Military Parent Doll to a Child Who Lost a Parent in the Line of Duty
We also accept donations through our site if anyone is interested in donating to our project to help us send out more dolls. If a person donates $30 or more they can choose the doll and the family they would like it to go to. We will also include that they donated this doll or we can keep it anonymous.
Learn More About Hearts and Heroes
You can check out the Hearts and Heroes website: www.heartsandheroesus.com
You can find Hearts and Heroes on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heartsandheroesus/
You can find Hearts and Heroes on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heartsandheroes
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