How It Works
Project Sunshine works with medical centers across the US to transform hospitals, outpatient centers, and long-term care facilities into cheerful places for pediatric patients and families. We design fun, creative, and educational programs that our vast network of trained volunteers implement.
Caregiver Wellness
Hospital units are transformed into soothing environments for parents and caregivers through relaxation activities including aromatherapy, calming breathing exercises, and chair yoga.
Creative Arts and Crafts
Volunteers bring materials and facilitate arts and crafts activities, which encourage self-expression and imagination.
Party Time
Special events celebrate holidays and other landmark occasions, bringing pediatric patients and families together to socialize.
Star for a Day
A one-of-a-kind celebration, inspired by a patient's hobbies and interests, brightens the day of a child going through a particularly difficult medical challenge.
Sunshine Chefs
Volunteers and guest chefs host interactive cooking lessons, which encourage kids to try new foods and promote healthy eating habits. At residential facilities, volunteers cook meals for patients and their families to enjoy together.
Sending Sunshine is a unique program that impacts pediatric patients while volunteering outside of the hospital.
Creative Arts & Crafts Kits are care packages used at medical centers when young patients face long hours of isolation, since family members and professionals cannot always be present. Kits include arts supplies for a child to construct a fun, themed craft.
Surgi Dolls are plain, body-shaped dolls that young patients decorate, personalize, and use as a means of comfort. Sewn by volunteers, these stuffed buddies are distributed in hospitals, where they may be used by medical staff to demonstrate what will happen during an upcoming procedure. By allowing children to claim ownership of their treatment, Surgi Dolls can decrease a patient’s anxiety, while also serving as surrogates and friends.
How it Works
Project Sunshine distributes materials to volunteer chapters. Our volunteers take these materials to compile them into individual kits or Surgi Dolls. These are then sent to hospitals and medical centers across the United States. Child Life Specialists and Social Workers hand them out to patients in need of distraction and often use them to develop rapport and ease tense situations.
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