Kaori Dotson holds one of the "prayer bears" given away in comfort bags to pediatric patients at Mercy St. Louis in Missouri, as her mom Dameeka Kinnard looks on. At right, Jocelyn Minicky enjoys the items
she received in her comfort bag.Mid-January brought special donations from the local community for Mercy St. Louis in Missouri and for CommonSpirit Health's Dignity Health Marian Regional Medical Center in Santa Maria, California.
At Mercy, several community organizations came together to donate items for comfort bags that families can have when their child is admitted to inpatient care from the emergency department.
Mercy Kids Child Life Specialist Kelsey Mitchell says when a child comes to the emergency department, the visit and a subsequent hospital admission are usually unexpected, and so families are not prepared for an overnight stay. Mitchell has been working
with multiple organizations since late last year to gather supplies that families can benefit from during a child's inpatient stay — and that they can take with them upon discharge.
The Mercy Kids-branded tote bags contain a fleece blanket with the Mercy logo, a child-sized toothbrush, both lip balm and a plastic cup with the Mercy logo and colored pencils or markers from the Creve Coeur, Missouri, fire department. A St. Louis Christian
radio station, 99.1 JOY FM, used donations from listeners to fund stuffed "prayer bears," prayer cards and a prayer devotional for parents. The station's founder and on-air personality Sandi Brown delivered the bears to the hospital in mid-January,
sharing some of the items with patients and providing the rest to the hospital for the bags.
Mitchell says the Mercy foundation also contributed to the cost of assembling and filling the comfort bags.
Members of a "pre-hire" volunteer group at Mercy are filling about 600 bags with the donated items. The volunteers are people with disabilities who are building up skills as they seek to become Mercy co-workers.
Mitchell says with a busy pediatric emergency department and inpatient pediatric unit, she knows this initial supply of bags will not last forever. She is encouraging people to donate to Mercy St. Louis' foundation or to provide in-kind gifts for use
in bags in the future.
Janeth Ruiz surrounded by others and by gently used clothing and toys she donates to the Pediatric Closet at CommonSpirit Health's Dignity Health Marian Regional Medical Center in Santa Maria, California. From left are Dignity Health Community
Educators Elizabeth Chavez de Perez and Irene Castro, Janeth and her mom Teresa.Clothes for people in need
More than 1,900 miles west of Mercy, CommonSpirit Health's Dignity Health Marian Regional Medical Center in Santa Maria, California, also received a donation for young patients in mid-January. Janeth Ruiz,
a sixth-grade student at Joe Nightingale Elementary School in Orcutt, California, undertook a collection at her school and amassed 100 jackets and sweatshirts that she then donated to the Pediatric Closet at Marian. Many of the items she collected
were from her school's lost and found. She launders the items herself before donating them to the hospital's closet, which was established in 2016 to aid families in need.
Families of pediatric patients can go to the closet to choose clothing and toys to take home free of charge. Janeth has been making donations to the closet since she was in kindergarten.