Big Hearts for Little Hearts

Support group raises friends and funds for LLUCH

[SCOPE, Spring 2002]

Big Hearts for Little Hearts Guild president Eloise Habekost reads to a patient from his favorite book in the reading nook. The reading nook is an on-going guild project.

During the Christmas holiday season several evergreen trees grace the lobby of Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital.

At a casual glance, most people would think they were traditional Christmas trees. Upon closer examination, a visitor will see that instead of the usual Christmas decorations, each Tree of Hope is decorated with a special ornament that has a card attached with an important message.

The important message may seem cryptic to the visitor. It may just say “In honor of Sarah, from Mary.”

What the message doesn’t say is that Sarah is a nurse in the Children’s Hospital and that Mary was her patient. What the message doesn’t say are the countless hours that Sarah spent taking care of Mary—not only physically, but also spiritually and emotionally. What the message doesn’t tell about is the strong bond that developed between the nurse and her charge, that continues even years later.

Another card might read “In honor of Bobby, from Larry.” Again, this message doesn’t tell of the many visits that Bobby made to see his friend, Larry, who was hospitalized at LLUCH. It doesn’t say that Bobby was the only one who visited Larry on a regular basis while he was hospitalized for many weeks with leukemia.

Another card might read “In honor of the nurses at LLUCH, by Jessica’s parents.” What this card doesn’t show is the grief that Jessica’s parents have gone through since she died of cancer. What it doesn’t spell out is the heartfelt thanks that the parents express to the nurses who watched over Jessica and cried with them as they watched Jessica slowly slip away.

The Tree of Hope is just one of the many projects sponsored by the Big Hearts for Little Hearts guild that help support the activities at LLUCH.
Officially founded on September 14, 1999, with the first charter membership tea, the guild was formed solely for the support and enhancement of the care given to sick and injured children.

“We were very aware that other children’s hospitals throughout the region and across the country had guilds supporting the activities of their hospitals,” says Dixie Watkins, founding president of the guild. “Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital was new and the concept of a guild had not been developed as yet. That’s where we came in.”

Founding president of the Big Hearts for Little Hearts guild Dixie Watkins assists a child as she gives a physical examination to her stuffed animal at the “teddy bear clinic” at the annual LLUCH Children’s Day held each spring.

Many hours of planning and preparation were spent in developing the concept of the Big Hearts for Little Hearts guild. “During initial planning stages, our core committee met regularly every two weeks beginning in early 1998,” Ms. Watkins continues. “We made trips to visit other children’s hospitals and guilds in the Southern California area. We obtained bylaws from several guilds in the Orange County and Los Angeles County areas.”

Ms. Watkins and Eloise Habekost, a retired school teacher and current guild president, in cooperation with LLUCH Foundation chair Nancy Varner, organized a core group of volunteers to form the Big Hearts for Little Hearts guild.

“We decided what our goals were, developed a mission statement, wrote bylaws for the guild, and set the date for our first event—a membership tea held on September 14, 1999,” Ms. Habekost states.

“We developed a program that we thought would capture and show the vision of the Children’s Hospital to prospective members,” Ms. Habekost continues. “We sent out 300 hand-made invitations to individuals who we thought had big hearts.”

As a result of the first membership tea, 50 new members joined the guild. “We were very pleased with our initial success,” Ms. Watkins says. Currently the guild has 120 members.

“Many of the other children’s hospitals in the region have as many as 26 guilds, but these children’s hospitals have been in existence for 50 or more years. LLUCH has been in existence less than 10 years. So we have a long way to go,” Ms. Habekost relates.

In addition to the Loma Linda guild, the Desert guild has recently been organized, and a Rancho Cucamonga guild is in the planning stages. “We foresee the day when we might have as many as 20 guilds supporting the Children’s Hospital,” Ms. Watkins forecasts.

In addition to the Tree of Hope, the guild sponsors or participates in numerous other projects.

“Since I am a teacher,” Ms. Habekost says, “I thought we should do something educational for our children. Because some of the children are hospitalized for several weeks, we developed a reading program where our guild members and other volunteers could read to the children.”

The guild organized a spring read in April of 2000. “This was extremely well-received,” Ms. Habekost continues. “Many of our volunteers wanted to continue this program, but we needed a permanent place to read to our children.

“We wrote a grant proposal to the Los Angeles Times and Bank of America requesting a total of $30,000 to support a reading nook in the Children’s Hospital. Representatives from these organizations came out to review our proposal and remarked that our project was one of the best they had ever seen. Consequently, they funded us for the full amount of our request.

Patient Michael Billings (foreground) and Riverside Culinary Arts Academy student Jonathan Mercado decorate a gingerbread house for the gingerbread village that adorns the LLUCH lobby each Christmas season.

“We have outgrown our first reading area and are now in the early stages of writing a second grant proposal for another reading nook. This is such an exciting project. The children just come and hang out in the reading nook—and their parents come too.”

Another favorite project of the guild is the annual gingerbread village, set in place during the Christmas holidays.

For the past several years, the Culinary School of Riverside has baked approximately 100 gingerbread houses. The students bring the unfinished houses to the Children’s Hospital where guild members glue the houses together.

“Then the fun part begins,” Ms. Habekost says. “We take the assembled gingerbread houses up to the children’s units where the patients frost and decorate the various houses.”

The finished pieces are then assembled into a village and displayed in the lobby of the Children’s Hospital. “Our gingerbread village is becoming well-known throughout the Inland Empire,” Ms. Habekost says. “We have many visitors coming to the hospital during the Christmas holiday season just to admire the children’s handiwork.”

What does the guild ask of its members? “We only ask of our members what they can do,” Ms. Habekost says. “This is what is so appealing about our guild. We don’t ask anything of our guild members except for their support in our projects.”

During the guild’s first year of existence, members raised more than $20,000. This year alone, the guild has donated $50,000 to various projects that support the Children’s Hospital.

“We have many service opportunities and our members regularly volunteer their time in making our numerous projects happen,” Ms. Watkins states.

“People have asked us, ‘Why do you spend all this time here when you could be doing something else?’

“My favorite answer is that we have spent our lifetime raising our family or pursuing our career, and when that period of our life reaches a conclusion, we aren’t dead yet! We still have energy and have something to contribute. So we find

ways that bring us personal satisfaction and also make a difference in the lives of others,” Ms. Watkins continues.

“In the health-care arena, friend-raising and fundraising used to be a wonderful perk. Now it is an absolute necessity—especially when you consider that three- fourths of the children we serve here at Loma Linda are not adequately insured.”

The guild has a “wish list” for projects they would like to support in cooperation with the Children’s Hospital.

Some of these projects include funding a garden of prayer adjacent to the neonatal intensive care unit, renovations to the Children’s Hospital lobby, new equipment for LLUCH departments, and organizing at least two guilds per year over the next several years.

Current projects include providing Beanie Babies™ for children attending Camp Good Grief (a camp for children who have lost siblings or parents), Beanie Babies™ for the Proton Treatment Center, providing new books for the LLUCH reading areas, providing children’s magazines for the LLUCH lobby, sponsoring the annual Martha Green holiday cooking class, the gingerbread village, Tree of Hope, and the Safe Kids project.

“The guild is an incredibly strategic partner with the Children’s Hospital,” says Patti Cotton Pettis, executive director of the LLUCH Foundation. “Some individuals think that guild members are strictly volunteers, but they are really much more than that. They are community advocates for Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital, and they are advocates for the children themselves.

“Without the Big Hearts for Little Hearts guild, we simply could not continue to provide the children of the Inland Empire with the special level of care that they deserve.”

[SCOPE, Spring 2002]