Please take a second to cheer up some sick kids on Valentine's Day!

Two years ago I was receiving chemotherapy at Miller's Children's hospital in Long Beach Memorial to help fight off burkitt's lymphoma, a blood cancer. Around this time of year I was fifteen years old and had been isolated in quarantine for three weeks. I was very depressed to find out that I wouldn't be well enough in time to join my friend's at school for Valentine's.
To my pleasant surprise though, the nurses in the pediatric oncology/hematology ward gave us all homemade valentines! We also got a visit from a therapy dog and some anonymous sorority girls sent us cards as well!

To this day I still have every single Valentine I received and I remember how happy I was to get them!
But while I've made a full recovery, many other kids, mostly just young toddlers, are not so lucky. They're still cooped up in their hospital rooms for long stretches of time, seeing the same exact same things every day.

With Valentine's Day coming up in a week, I'm asking that you consider taking just a minute to sign some valentines and send them/drop them off at your local pediatric hospital.
I can speak from experience, it truly does mean a lot to those kids knowing that they're thought of! After a while we feel so far away and detached from the real world, so even just the smallest gesture can bring us back and cheer us up. And not just the kids either, I've also seen that the kindness of outside strangers renews strength in the families supporting their children through those tough times too!

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING! I REALLY HOPE THAT YOU'LL CONSIDER THIS - IT WOULD ONLY TAKE A MINUTE OF YOUR TIME, BUT IT WOULD MAKE SOME KIDS VERY HAPPY!

Some tips~

- Most pediatric wards have toys for the children, but they can get boring fast to a child with nothing else to do all day. Because of that, toy donations are one of the best things you could give, but you might want to check with the hospital's policy first. (Ex. I know that in our ward we weren't allowed to have stuffed animals since they can harbor mold and bacteria.) Most stores have puzzle and toy kits for just $1 or so each that allow them to build and color, there's a lot of Valentine's themed ones right now too. They are often accepted materials for hospital play rooms and the quick crafts are great for kids to go through. Also small liquid motion and fidget toys are cheap, but will keep anyone fascinated for a while.

- Many kids cannot eat certain foods (such as candy) and many others just aren't up to eating them. Unless you are personally delivering things to each child on a case to case basis, I feel it might be unfair to exclude them from the group so in some cases you might just be better off skipping those sort of things.

- An easy gift I always recommend are stickers! Simple and fun for everyone!

- If you're not sure whether a boy or girl will be receiving them, then it might be best to try and keep things gender neutral. Like a "funny animal" or cartoon card theme instead of a "fairy princess" one.

- If you're looking to fill out the "to -" section of cards then you can put things like "To someone I admire" or "To a very special kid" or "to someone great/awesome" or "to a wonderful child" etc etc etc that way you don't have to worry about names.

It really doesn't have to be anything fancy, it's the gesture that counts!