Kicking off miracles

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Jenn Parker

Walmart associates at the Walmart #640 store on Woodruff Road kicked off the Children's Hospital Miracle Campaign on May 1.

Note: Meet our newest staff member, Dianne Dillon! She works with Dania, Zach and Jenn on the annual giving team, and she’ll be joining us as bloggers. We hope you enjoy hearing her stories, including the one below, as much as we do!

Around our offices the next few months is about corporate Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals (CMN Hospitals) Campaigns. At the end of April, Children’s Hospital of Greenville Hospital System celebrated with Walmart and Sam’s Club associates their success for the 2011 Miracle Campaign and kicked off the 2012 campaign. With over 40 Walmart and Sam’s Club stores in the district, a whopping $639,000 was raised to support the GHS Children’s Hospital in 2011.

Walmart and Sam’s Club associates heard a Miracle Family’s story (the Thompson family). Christy Thompson (mom) shared with us her daughter Neely’s story and what Children’s Hospital meant to her family. The powerful presentation ended with very few dry eyes and a celebration of life, partnership and awards to stores that grew their campaign the most through various fundraising efforts. To top it all off, they received a tour of Children’s Hospital that they had just heard so much about.

At the beginning of May, I had the opportunity to go to a Walmart store Kick Off. Each associate had written on a balloon what the Children’s Hospital CMN Hospitals campaign meant to them. Once outside the balloons were released and the air was filled with the colorful balloons. It was very festive! One associate shared her story of how her family was touched by the support from CMN Hospitals and how her grandchild is alive today because of the wonderful doctors and nurses in our area. This was truly a grateful associate and patient family. It reminded me why I got back into the fundraising field.

Before this Miracle Campaign, I didn’t realize how much Walmart partners with the community. It was an inspiration to me to see how involved the stores managers and associates rally around the Miracle Campaign. To be a Walmart cashier and ask EVERY shopper coming through their line if they will donate to the campaign and not to get discouraged at the varied responses, what a testimony to the dedication to their campaign.

I know the next time I’m asked by an associate of Walmart to support Children’s Hospital, I will be saying “YES!” to helping the children in our community! What will your response be?

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My first Dragon Boat Upstate Festival

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Dianne Dillon

I can’t believe I haven’t attended a Dragon Boat Upstate Festival before this year! What an amazing experience to see so many people join together for one purpose: to paddle for cancer research and rehabilitation through the GHS Cancer Center and the Institute for Translational Oncology Research (ITOR).

I was humbled by the overall experience, but one specific individual stood out to me. I met a woman who was in the hospital for cancer treatment on Friday and on Saturday, the very next day, she was sitting in a Dragon Boat tent, cheering for her team. She told me she wasn’t going to let treatment get in the way of being at the Dragon Boat Upstate Festival this year.

That conversation impacted me for the rest of the day and carried into my Sunday. Here is a woman who is actively going through cancer treatment, visibly tired but with such a positive outlook on what the Dragon Boat Upstate Festival means to the community.

She was supporting her team that day, but more importantly, she was there to support cancer research and rehabilitation. She was fighting for a purpose that was bigger than her circumstances. She was an inspiration to me and others that day.

I know I won’t miss another Dragon Boat Upstate Festival. I invite you, if you haven’t been part of a Dragon Boat Upstate Festival, to gather a team together and paddle in next year’s event. It’s an experience of a lifetime!

See the fun for yourself through pictures from this year’s event at dragonboatupstatesc.org!

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Dragon Boat week is here!

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Jenn Parker

Dragon Boat Upstate Festival Hope Parade

In celebration of Dragon Boat Upstate Festival week (the event is this Saturday, April 21 at Portman Marina on Lake Hartwell), I’d like to share another story from one of our paddlers. It’s been an honor to collect these stories from our paddlers – it reminds me how truly important this festival and its fundraising are for our cancer patients and their families! You can see earlier stories here and here.

This one is from Juanita Longoria, a member of the Moving On team:

“Why am I paddling in this year’s Dragon Boat race? Simply put, because I can! About six months ago, I would not have been able to make such a statement.

I also desire to give back to those who have invested so much time and effort to my health and well being, and to also help those who may come after me in need of the care I received.

As a colon cancer survivor, I have directly benefited from the services Dragon Boat is striving to support, research and rehabilitation. When my chemo treatments became complicated with an allergic reaction, the tests and research determined the most effective treatment options. The work ITOR is doing helped to provide my physician with valuable information on what therapy my particular case required.

Now enjoying remission, I am on the verge of graduating from the Moving On program. I am so thankful for the Moving On staff. Under their careful watch, they helped to show me what I was capable of, and encouraged me on. I know I would not be as physically active as I am today if it were not for their efforts and this valuable program.

I cannot say enough about the health care professionals at GHS, the Cancer Center, and those heading up the Moving On program. I am honored to be able to paddle this year alongside some of my heroes, and so thankful for their work that has allowed me to be able to participate in this year’s race.”

Visit dragonboatupstatesc.org to see stories from paddlers in our featured videos!

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Children’s Hospital Sun Fun Carnival

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Jenn Parker

The carnival’s coming to town, y’all.

On April 29, the Children’s Hospital Sun Fun Carnival rolls back into the Healing Garden at Greenville Memorial Hospital. I know from being there and snapping photos that it’s a fun, special day, and I know that it’s one of the highlights of my year.

But that’s just my perspective – this year, I wanted to get to the root of why the carnival is such an important, powerful day for children and their families from someone who knows the carnival best.

To do that, I stopped by Children’s Hospital last week to talk with Child Life Specialist Kym Hoffman. There is nothing – nothing – like hanging out with a Child Life Specialist. They work with pediatric patients every day, making sure kids have creative opportunities to cope with treatment through play, education and self-expression activities. Simply put, they’re awesome.

Check out Kym’s stories about why the carnival matters, about what the day is like and about feeling the community’s support in the video above.

If you’d like to bring the carnival to life with a gift through Virtual Toy Drive, click here to make a difference.

Posted in Children's Hospital, Community, Giving, Virtual Toy Drive | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Unveiling hope

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Jenn Parker

As long as I live, I will never forget March 27, 2012.

It was a day months (and for lots of folks, years) in the making – it was our Bryan Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) Wall of Hope Unveiling Ceremony, where we celebrated the children and adults whose portraits would be serve as an expansion to the existing wall.

This wasn’t just any ceremony – at this ceremony, an infant’s cry or a toddler’s stream of chatter wasn”t met with shushes or sidelong glances. Those cries and those bits of chatter were like little victory songs, reminders that the smallest guests had made it and reminders of why we were all there.

At this ceremony, 16 families invited their nearest and dearest to share in their special moment, filling tables and filling the community room at Greenville Memorial Hospital with laughter. One of my favorite parts of the night was meeting some of these families (whose stories I’d read so often I felt like I already knew them), including a great uncle down from Chattanooga, Tenn., for the ceremony.

“I wouldn’ta missed it for the world,” he told me, beaming.

At this ceremony, we told stories. Medical Director of Neonatalogy Bryan Ohning shared how families didn’t just see the NICU wall covered in photos of former NICU patients (now happy, healthy kids) as a wall of hope -they saw it as a wall of expectation, a wall of things to come. Photographer Tiffiney Addis of Tiffiney Photography explained how her daughter Sadie Mae, born at 25 weeks in the NICU, started it all for her: her appreciation for the care at GHS Children’s Hospital, her understanding of the impact of the Wall of Hope, her passion to give back to families like hers.

At this ceremony, we saved the best for last: 16 families gathered around each of their portraits, covered in black cloth throughout the night, to unveil the newest additions to the NICU Wall of Hope.

At this ceremony, there were audible gasps and visible tears when those 16 gorgeous black-and-white portraits were revealed.

At this ceremony, there was hope.

If you’d like to see the kids and families featured in the NICU Wall of Hope project, click here.

Posted in Children's Hospital, Community, Giving | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment



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