Drawn To Help

If Drawn To Help and I were to receive the Elevate Prize, the funding would help us expand our outreach to children in hospitals substantially.  We are already reaching pediatric patients at multiple treatment facilities in 8 states, and our dream is to expand across the country.

It would help us bring our programs to kids who are currently underserved and facing extreme medical challenges.  We have volunteers who are waiting to be able to visit hospitals in their own areas, and we just need the proper funding to make that happen.

Funds would be used to build up a supply of the art materials we give to the children, cover the costs of shipping them to our volunteers, assist us with general operating expenses and enable us to reach children we might not be able to see in person by expanding our digital outreach substantially.

An Elevate Prize would enable us to expand our caring, healing and compassionate outreach in a big way.

I began this work as an individual effort after a dear friend's son was diagnosed with Leukemia. She saw what a powerful impact art programs had on young patients, and knowing that I was already doing multiple library and school presentations, she suggested that I might want to visit children in hospitals from time to time.

At that time, I thought it would just be something I would do occasionally.  But it quickly took over my entire life.  It became my passion. Other cartoonists and illustrators became aware of what I was doing, and asked if I could help them do the same thing for young patients in their areas.

And the programs just took on a life of their own.  We rapidly expanded to a variety of hospitals and camps, reaching young patients at multiple locations in 8 states.

We became a fiscally sponsored program, enabling us to seek grants and funding we might not otherwise have been able to get.

My vision and purpose is to expand what we are already doing in a big way, and hopefully build an easily replicable system so that cartoonists can do this work in other countries too.

Drawn To Help takes cartoonists and illustrators to visit children in hospitals.

Many of them experience deep depressions and feelings of fear and anxiety.

We help lift them up and assist in alleviating the extreme isolation they encounter while going through intrusive and rigorous treatments for their illnesses.

They often feel forgotten.  So we brighten up their days with laughter and fun.  But it's not just about that.  Studies have shown that creative activities release powerful endorphins into the body, which helps reduce stress and relieve pain.  And we've witnessed that happening right in front of our eyes.

We give our young patients free drawing lessons, art supplies that they get to keep and fun books that are often autographed by the author or illustrator.

We've served thousands of children so far, and we've watched many of them be lifted out of depression, have their appetites return and seen their pain go away.

We encourage them to look to the future instead of dwelling on their current problems, and inspire them to share their dreams with us and chase them.

It's not just about drawing funny pictures.  It's about helping the children heal.

Drawn To Help takes our programs straight to the children at the hospitals and camps we serve.  And we let them be in charge.

Pediatric patients are poked and prodded all day long, told where they need to be and when they need to be there, and often feel a bit helpless in those situations.

So our volunteers let the children feel more in control.  They get to tell us what they'd like to draw, or what they'd like us to draw for them.  We give them a feeling of empowerment and importance.

At many hospitals we serve, our volunteers linger for hours afterwards, making sure that every request they've received is fulfilled.  Every child counts.

And, the art supplies we give to the children enable them to continue experiencing the healing power of creativity long after we've gone home.

We've responded to the pandemic by doing remote broadcasts for the kids, and Zoom visits.  And, we've also created a vast digital art activity library that is given to caregivers free of charge.  It contains hundreds of pages of distracting fun, and the images we share have come in from artists around the world.

The children we serve are tomorrow's leaders.  They are our planet's future.  Every single one of them matters, and we help give them hope and inspire them to keep fighting under some of the most difficult circumstances imaginable.

I've personally witnessed children who were crying in pain and fear begin to laugh and giggle when they were distracted by drawing their own cartoons.  Some even began to smile and chat happily while they were undergoing painful treatments.

So we are doing our best to expand our outreach as far and wide as we possibly can.  We are reaching out to new hospitals, and actively recruiting new volunteers so we're ready to really roll out our programs in a big way when the current pandemic ends.  And, we're doing as much as possible digitally in the meantime.

Our methods are effective.  If the funding is there, we will be expanding our efforts to several more states, because we have hospitals contacting us about that.  And we have a wealth of new volunteers who have inquired about doing programs in their areas.