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Christmas Cheer
December 25, 2007
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The holidays can
make a hospital stay harder for anyone, especially for little patients.
Kelley Cowen is a Child Life Specialist with the Children’s Hospital of Southwest
Florida. She says, “A lot of them will not be out of here for Christmas so we have
to go through the whole thing of does Santa know where I am and stuff like that
you know, will I get as many presents as my brothers and sisters, will I see my
family during the holidays stuff like that.” The women’s soccer team at Florida
Gulf Coast University knows what it’s like when an injury or illness puts your happiness
on hold. “We went through our season with what we felt like were significant injuries.
We had people hurt and we just felt you know, the correlation was there,” says head
coach Jim Blakenship. With that in mind the team decided to take some time out of
training and take a trip to the Children’s Hospital of Southwest Florida. Amber
McCall is the Captain of the FGCU women’s soccer team. “We got together and all
got toys for the boys and girls,” she says. We pulled up here and we got off the
elevators and came in and they were all waiting, you could just see the joy in their
eyes,” says coach Blakenship. Injuries and illnesses aside, the FGCU soccer stars
made friends with the special patients and the holiday spirit was in full swing.
“It’s truly amazing because they just took so much to these girls that came out
and you know opened their arms to you know playing and just getting on the floor
and being with the kids,” says Cowen. McCall says she was glad to be able to brighten
up the day for some children. “They all seem to be smiling so that’s important.
Hopefully the hour or two that we’re here they can concentrate on something else.”
If you want to learn more about volunteering at the Children’s Hospital of Southwest
Florida, you can log onto www.leememorial.org. |
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