Kids Charity Groups Find Way to Visit Yale-New Haven’s Pediatric Cancer Patients

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) — Charities that help pediatric cancer patients are not able to visit those kids in person right now. Thursday morning, however, they did find a way to bring smiles to the faces of patients from a distance.

They dressed up as dinosaurs, unicorns, robots, and animals. They are folks with nonprofit groups that usually go visit sick kids in hospitals or do things with those kids outside the hospital. None of that can happen right now.

“We can’t send food to the hospital. We can’t go into the hospital to hang out with the kids who are getting treatment right now,” said Melissa Simoni of Camp Rising Sun. “A lot of our events have been canceled or postponed.”

So instead, they dressed up and stood outside Yale-New Haven Hospital, waving at the patients inside. Most of the charities represented help children with cancer. That experience is scary enough, even without a global pandemic.

“This has been a very difficult time, but I have to tell you that our patients and families have been amazing,” said Denise Carr, the Pediatric Oncology Manager, Yale-New Haven Hospital. “They have been doing such a great job through all of this. They have been helping us to support them.”

The charities do more than dress up and wave. Through the internet, they can still brighten the days of some sick kids.

“We’re doing our best to try to continue to bring that sunshine. We’re doing virtual events,” said Courtney Bragg of the Sunshine Kids Foundation. “We’re having them all get together virtually still and connecting them. We’re doing yoga classes and baking classes.”

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