Eliza Crowder Forever Young Zone - Visit #3

Eliza Crowder

Forever Young Zone Visit #3

October 8, 2015

Supervisors: Christine Lewman and Maryellen Hinderliter (clewman@stanfordchildrens.org) and (MHinderliter@stanfordchildrens.org)

Working at the Forever Young Zone in the Lucille Packard Children's Hospital is both similar and different from what I originally expected. I did anticipate that I would be emotionally moved by my interactions with the sick children with whom I played, but I wasn't expecting all of the behind-the-scenes work that goes into running this organization. The FYZ is a place for the young patients (and their families) to recreate, play board games, play video games, do puzzles, do crafts, and so much more. My tasks in the FYZ include helping set up and creating examples for the day's given craft project, making the rounds to the hospital beds to invite kids to come to the FYZ, playing and interacting with the children and families in the FYZ, helping to organize the backroom, and cleaning up when the FYZ closes.

On this particular visit, not many children came into the FYZ, so I spent the majority of my time organizing the plethora of donations that cluttered the back room. It was so crazy messy that it took nearly the whole shift (3 hours) to clean. I was in awe at how many donations were there, but how truly unneccesary and, for lack of a better word, how crappy some of the donated items were. It made me realize how when I donate something I want it to have a direct and helpful use for someone, rather than just a piece of junk that won't really make a difference in one's life. 

One challenge I came across was figuring out how to handle the families of the children. It was always very obvious that the ailment of the given child was debilitating towards the parents, and being comforting and kind to both the patients and their families was a top priority. Seeing how an illness can affect one's life so drastically has made me immensely grateful for my health and the health of my family members. I often found myself thinking "why them and not me?" I still don't really have an answer to that quesiton but it just goes to show unfair life really is!

My favorite part of the shifts is when I get to go around to each of the hospital beds and encourage the children to come to the FYZ. I love this on-one-one interaction time because I get to see how I'm making a difference in the general happiness of these kid's lives. Often times the kids aren't able to come to the FYZ, but seeing their faces light up when I would walk into the room made me realize how much they appreciate the little things in life. Even though I don't have a huge impact on the entire organization, I am confident that I do have an impact on each of the children's lives because of how I could easily make the kids days ten times better by playing play dough with them or by playing a video game with them. 
This is a photo of the cluttered storage room in the back of the FYZ.