Children's Hospital of Philadelphia - May 2nd
It turned out to be a warm sunny day in Philadelphia after a week full of rainy days. The Child Life Special Events Coordinator at CHOP met us and escorted us to the playroom to setup. We were limited in space but, our dedicated and wonderful volunteers that came along to assist, were able to set up a table with wooden hero shields for the patients and siblings to paint. We set up tiaras, capes, masks and shields on side tables. We draped the main table and set up for a hero paint party. We set out wooden shields, foam stickers, paints and brushes.
There was no photography allowed on the unit or with the patients. We made 33 goody bags for delivery to the patient rooms. Our three volunteers, Reshma, Nehal and Ieda, gathered all the necessary supplies based on the CL list of patients that decided to have us visit. We prepared for a full unit but about half decided they did not want a visit or had checked out.
I stayed behind in the playroom to greet any children that would show up. I had three moms come in to gather supplies to take back to their room’s and decorate with their child. One little boy did visit in his wagon but he did not want to stay in the playroom to decorate so I gathered all the supplies he picked out to decorate his shield and placed a cape, mask, stickers, and paints in a goody bag for him to carry back to his room.
We went room to room doing crafts with the patients, painting nails, and delivering goody bags filled with either a mask, craft, cape, superhero ring, and stickers for the boys and tiaras, capes, nail polish, jewelry, craft and stickers for the girls. Some of the patients or their family members would participate but for the majority of the visits we just dropped off the goody bags for the patients to enjoy at their leisure. I spent about an hour with one young man talking and decorating his shield with his input of course. He directed me on what to put on the shield and where to place the stickers. I ended up finishing it off by hanging the mask and attaching the cape over the shield. He was so positive and kind. He told me that I did a great job even though I made a couple mistakes that I was able to fix.
The Child Life Staff was fabulous to work with and were impressed with the quality of our products. They look forward to our return in several months.
We will be returning to Camp Quality NJ in August. Our volunteers are looking forward to that event as well.
