This year, I started a project at Tabor that a family friend of mine began 10 years ago called the Box of Fun Project, a service project to bring joy to hospitalized children. This project originally began in 2005 when my family friend, Jack, who was 9 years old, was diagnosed with Adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD).
ALD is a disease which generally only affects boys (usually between the ages of 6-10), and is characterized by the breakdown of the myelin in the brain. Without treatment the disease progresses quickly, completely physically and emotionally draining the child before leading to death. The only way to stop ALD is through a stem cell transplant and in 2007 Jack received a transplant. During his time, another family friend, who had been recently diagnosed with cancer, gave him a box called “Jack’s Box of Fun” which was filled with toys and crafts that he could play with during his 100-day stay in the hospital. His mother, Jessie, thought this was a brilliant idea and started the Boxes of Fun Project, creating boxes for terminally ill children who were in patients at a local hospital. Since then, her daughter, Anna, has taken over the project and integrated it into her school. When my mom told me about their project, I immediately loved it
Next year, I will begin nursing school as I hope to one day be a pediatric nurse. Naturally, the idea of making sick children feel better through gifts was extremely appealing to me. I saw how much of a difference it made in children’s lives and absolutely adored the concept, as my love for helping kids is why I decided to go to nursing school in the first place.
This summer, while interning on the pediatric floor at Massachusetts General Hospital, I proposed the Box of Fun idea to my supervisor, met with many of the floor staff and finally, was given permission to run my project at Mass General throughout the year. I asked my good friend, Lauren Dawicki ’19, to help me with this project in hopes that Box of Fun will continue to thrive at Tabor long after I graduate in June.
This week, with the help of the Tabor community, we successfully filled 10 Boxes of Fun that will be transported by Lauren and I to Mass General Hospital next week. It is extremely rewarding to have made a difference here at Tabor by creating an avenue for our students to help improve the lives of these terminally ill children.
I have learned a lot about myself through this project, including that my love for helping people will always be a huge part me. I want to extend my gratitude to everyone here at Tabor who joined the project and participated at various levels. The Box of Fun project at Tabor was a major success and I am confident it will continue under Lauren’s careful leadership into the future.
