Giving Comfort Program

The Cause

The Stollery Children's Hospital Foundation saw a need within the Hospital to give families some comfort while away from home. When parents are rushing to the Hospital quite often they can only focus on their child. Perhaps a phone charger isn't top of mind but after being in the Emergency Room for a few hours their phone might be close to dying. Their child might get sick on the clothes they are in and have nothing to change into. The ER can be cold especially if you are under the weather, a blanket isn't something we all carry in our purses. We wanted to provide some comforts of home to our families so we came up with the Giving Comfort Campaign that launched in December of 2017. Items include puzzle books, adult and kids colouring books, rattles, headphones, blankets, adult and kids toiletry kits, plush toys, phone chargers, t-shirts and more. As of January 2020, we handed out more than 24,000 comfort items since the program started in 2017. The original program was just for the Emergency Room but we have since expanded the program to 13 other units.
“Thank you for supplying these kits as previously we were keeping our cans and bottles-collecting the money from those and going out a purchasing toiletry items for our patients. This has removed a large workload for our staff!” – Pediatric Medicine Inpatient Unit, Unit Manager

Who Will it Benefit?

Any parents and child that visit the Stollery Emergency Room and 13 other Units including our NICU at the Royal Alex can ask the Stollery staff for items. We also have assigned times in the Emergency Department for volunteers to hand out items (COVID put these shifts on hold).