Project Sunshine’s commitment to hospitalized children is stronger than ever. It is frightening enough to face long-term health challenges, undergo extended treatments for cancer and other medical conditions, manage injuries and disabilities, and await and recover from surgical procedures. It’s harder still when the world is reeling in response to a pandemic unprecedented in our lifetimes. With the threat of overburdened, understaffed, and under-equipped hospitals devoting their limited resources to the COVID-19 response, children grappling with illnesses are in very real danger of receiving reduced attention and stress-reducing play opportunities.
Our most vulnerable in the community, hospitalized children, are facing more isolation and emotional distress than ever before.
Here are the ways we are addressing the current needs of pediatric patients:
- There is a surge in demand for Project Sunshine’s proprietary, therapeutic, single-use Activity Kits. The requests for these kits among our 350+ hospital partners have increased by 1,000% – demonstrating the urgency of what only Project Sunshine offers. We are working to procure and deliver 200,000 Activity Kits to meet this urgent need.
- We are piloting remote programming via secure video conferencing platforms to reach pediatric patients who are isolated in hospitals across the country so that Certified Child Life Specialists can continue to address their patients’ social-emotional needs. We hope to be able to include our trained volunteers in these connections as this program unfolds.
- We have curated a library of new and existing online resources that are developmentally appropriate for children in hospitals that patients and families will now have access to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- And we’re still bringing joy: We are working on an Instagram joke-telling series to encourage us to keep laughing; for the month of April, our passionate volunteers are venturing on a #30DaysofSunshine challenge to spread joy during these challenging days
You can support these time-sensitive initiatives by donating here.
