CABBAGE PATCH DELIVERY UNIT VISITS

A Cabbage Patch mobile delivery unit of Babyland General Hospital will be in Cape Girardeau Saturday.

"The latest Cabbage Patch technology allows Mother Cabbages to deliver their Cabbage Patch Kids in areas throughout the U.S.," said Nancy Reppen, a Cabbage Patch adoption agent at Cape Art Mart, 21 Plaza Way.

Cape Art Mart, 21 Plaza Way, is one of the newest official adoption centers for Original Cabbage Patch Kids. Reppen has been an adoption agent for the hand-stitched, soft-sculptured dolls from the Cleveland, Ga., Cabbage Patch, more than a year.

The Cabbage Patch Kids phenomena, developed by artist Xavier Roberts in 1977, became the rage of the toy world in 1978 after being discovered at an arts and crafts fair in Georgia in 1977.

The dolls are made by hand at the Babyland General Hospital in Cleveland, and are now being dispatched by mobile delivery units to adoption centers from Massachusetts to Florida.

"This is the first visit that the mobile unit has every made to the tri-state area," said Reppen. "Accompanying the units will be two LPNs (Licensed Patch Nurses) to assist the Mother Cabbages with their deliveries of the original Cabbage Patch Kids."

Adoption papers are available with each of them. The "original" dolls are available only at Art Mart. Other Cabbage Patch Kids may be found in various outlets, but these are commercially manufactured.

A Cabbage Patch Kids Collectors Club is now six years old. The Cabbage Patch dolls have become collectors items during the past decade, with some of the first dolls now valued at $5,000.