Walking and Rolling at the 9th Annual Walk n’ Roll

This Saturday was our annual Walk n’ Roll! Can you believe this was the 9^th one we have held in Johnson Park in Piscataway!?

We started the walk as a way to ”introduce” Children’s Specialized Hospital to the New Brunswick community when we were building/opening our new inpatient hospital in 2007. With just over 300 participants the first year, it has been an extreme honor to see it grow to over 2,100 participants this past weekend!

What I find most special about this event is what it brings out in our employees…

Now, I know we’re all a little competitive by nature – but a few years back, when our Foundation suggested that each site have teams and compete to see who can raise more money, I knew they were on to something!

This year’s top honor of Top Children’s Specialized Team goes to Team Mountainside, led by the dynamic duo of Joan Gowdy and Kaylee McGuire. Congratulations to Kaylee, Joan, and all of our employee fundraisers that have literally been fundraising for months!

Not sure how many bake sales, car washes, and happy hours I’ve been to, but you guys are amazing! Doing anything to help our kids – including coming up with some really great ideas! 

 

Speaking about doing anything for our kids, Richard Raymond (Desktop Support Analyst/NB) and Beth Anne Dobosh (Director of Corporate Foundation Relations/New Brunswick) had a crazy idea. Why not send our VGo robot to the Walk n’ Roll and let Poppy control it since he was unable to attend walk this year?!?

Well, if you know Beth Anne like I know Beth Anne, once you give her an idea it will happen. Low and behold – with the help of Rich, Dr. Chris Haines, and Georgia Cassidy (Clinical Nurse Educator/New Brunswick) – that’s exactly what happened!

VGo joined us all on the start line and he walked… well… rolled with us around Johnson Park! Now that’s innovative!

What’s most special about Walk n’ Roll, and what I hope you can personally experience some day, is something that I cannot adequately describe in writing.

It’s a feeling.  A feeling that nearly always moves me to tears. A feeling of joy seeing patients who left our hospital needing help with the simplest of things; now running freely into the arms of the nurse that helped wipe their tears so many years ago.

A feeling of fulfillment seeing patients from Egg Harbor, Clifton, Hamilton, and Toms River all gathered in Piscataway knowing these patients would have never had access to care, close to home, if we haven’t had the means to expand our services and open new outpatient centers.

A feeling of celebration and acceptance for children and people with disabilities – public outings can often be very hard for families with children with disabilities and communities aren’t always very accommodating or accepting of children’s special needs.

At the Walk n’ Roll we do everything we can to help each family have a great experience and we celebrate everyone’s differences by honoring those special kids with fun team names with some really great shirts!  

Thank you to the entire Foundation team for creating this wonderful event that has evolved from a fundraiser to a day of celebration! Special thanks to Toni Bodrato  (Director of Special Events/Mountainside) who led the planning, fundraising, and logistics!

Also a HUGE thank you to all of our sites for your efforts – whether you won the fundraising challenge or not – your leadership and effort matters. Every dollar that you raised and every person you recruited to walk matters. Thank you for your support and compassion for this event and for our kids.

It takes a well-oiled machine to pull off an event as large as this! Great job everyone!

The Star-Ledger/NJ.com has an album full of photos: Click here. 

News 12 NJ did a short news story: Click here.

What is your favorite Walk n’ Roll feeling or memory?

Children's Challenge

If you follow social or traditional media, you have to have heard about the ice bucket challenge to raise funds and awareness for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's Disease.” The ALS association has raised millions after the craze got national attention when golfer Greg Norman challenged "Today" host Matt Lauer, and he accepted on live TV. The premise is simple: Dump a bucket of ice water on yourself, post video of the stunt online, and then tag Facebook friends and family to do the same. The challenge requires participants to take the plunge within 24 hours of being "nominated" or donate $100 to ALS.

Well, we all know I’m always up for a good challenge and I have personal connections to people affected by ALS. So – I drenched myself in the name of ALS and of course donated to the cause. I’ve seen and heard about many staff taking this challenge and this truly speaks to living our value of compassion! 

Tara Mohamed, child life specialist and Laurie Bodner, rec therapist in New Brunswick, put a twist on the ice bucket challenge!  I wish I had thought of this one! 

This got me thinking… how can Children’s Specialized Hospital use this premise to bring awareness and funds to help the kids we treat? I know we have some pretty creative folks here – I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below! 

Now the folks in Marketing tell me that you can’t really “make” things like this happen and cannot guarantee this type of viral outcome… If we don’t end up doing our own “challenge” – I challenge you to become our best public advocates.  Spread the word about Children’s Specialized through your social networks - the services we provide, the great work being done, recent news articles, upcoming events and fundraisers that you think you friends/families might support. 

Thank you all for living our values everyday and going above and beyond to help our kids reach their fullest potential!

Much More Than a Walk

As I drove to Johnson park on May 19, I thought about how blessed we are that we have people talented enough to figure out how to encourage 2,000 people to come out and support us and our kids. When I pulled in, I parked next to a car full of people with white t-shirts which said on the front 'miracles happen’ and the back ‘Team Ariana,’ for our own Ariana McQuire, CMNH Miracle Child. As I walked to the "gathering place", I was overwhelmed by the huge crowd of PSEG employee's. The chair of the team had made a personal commitment that she wanted this to be their best year ever and they won in 2 categories, largest corporate team and most money raised. They were so proud of themselves and their smiles could have lit up the park at night.

While I had met Coach Stringer before, I never had the chance to really talk to her. To share how important it is for us to be able to celebrate the success of our children and continue to raise funds that are so important for our continued success. She saw the commitment and excitement that people had to be there but more importantly, the love we have for each other and our children.

Over and over again I saw children who had been with us as inpatients, now home with their families, continuing to thrive and accomplish things that I couldn't have imagined when they arrived on ventilators and so frail. To watch them run around and be defiant of their parents made me laugh out loud at how "success" is seen differently based upon where you sit!

Then I saw many of you. Coming with your spouses, your children and even, your dogs! Joanne Hunt won for the most money raised by an individual and it helped put Team Mountainside over the top. But team New Brunswick had the largest number of members, taking that honor!

You gave of yourselves again, as you do each and every day.

So I offer this with my deepest thanks. I would love for those of you who were at this walk, or past walks, to share what was notable to you.

For me, it is the chance to have a little less formality and to see each other with a "humanness" that sometimes gets lost in our day to day work.