Child Life Departments: Creating a colorful Hospital Experience for Pediatric Patients

“I know that nobody really wants to be [in the hospital], so I think about, ‘How can I make it a little more special, a little bit more kid-friendly to be in that space?’” —Allegra Abbey-Berckmoes, Child Life Activity Coordinator

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness month. We’re taking this time to spotlight the heroes in Child Life Services departments who work every day to make the hospital experience a little easier for sick children.

Want to know more about what Child Life Services providers do? Check out the first part of our series!

Our board member, Allegra Abbey-Berckmoes, sat down with us to chat about her role as a Child Life Activity Coordinator at one of our partner children’s hospitals.

“I use art ALL the time to make connections with patients and families. My favorite thing is that art is a universal language. With the crayons from The Crayon Initiative, I’m able to build even more connections to help normalize the hospital environment for all patients and families.” —Allegra Abbey-Berckmoes

How You Can Help

Are you looking to get involved? Here are some ways you can help:

1. Donate financially. It costs us $1.46 to create a pack for one child. Without financial support, we aren’t able to process unwanted crayons into recycled ones for children in hospitals.
2. Collect unwanted crayons for us to melt down. We have a whole host of resources for how you can gather used or unwanted crayons. Check them out here!
3. Join a volunteer pod or create your own. If you’re in the Danville, California, area, you might be a great fit to volunteer in our facility! Our volunteer pods commit to a weekly time for consistent melting, molding, and packing our recycled crayons.

If you have any questions, reach out to us at info@thecrayonitiative.org!