Over 900 paper dolls hung up at Colony Square Mall during ‘Kinship’ month

ZANESVILLE, Ohio- Over 900 paper dolls are on display at the Colony Square Mall representing each child in Muskingum County being raised by a grandparent or other relative.

The paper dolls are hung up around the mall to bring awareness to ‘kinship care.’ This type of care is when grandparents or other family members raise children instead of their biological parents. Muskingum County Children’s Services Kinship Supervisor Patrick Donavan said this display shows how many kids in the area have a non-traditional upbringing.

“So (it) gives you an idea of the number of kids. All these children, if you put them together, you’d have enough kids for an entire school,” said Donavan

Donavan said the idea of hanging up paper dolls came from children services putting out pinwheels.

“In the Springtime for abuse awareness, Children Services, they do pinwheels,” said Donavan. “They’ll put a pinwheel up for each allegation that’s investigated for abuse/neglect. So the thought was we aught to do something for kinship. So instead of doing pinwheels we just decided we were going to do paper dolls.”

September is kinship month, and the dolls will be up in the mall for the rest of the month.