Boston Children's Hospital Every Child Fund

Boston Children’s Hospital is the place where life-changing care and world-changing research come together to produce excellence in disease treatment, scientific understanding, medical training, and healthier lifestyles for kids. Your support of The Every Child Fund helps us thrive in each area.

The Hale Family Center for Families provides a full range of logistical, informational, and emotional supports for families. This is where families turn for everything from financial help, to educational materials on their child’s illness, to training on medical procedures they’ll need to perform at home. It is where we offer wellness programs to help parents take care of themselves so they can be stronger for their children. Extraordinary Needs funding helps the Hale Family Center for Families alleviate the financial burdens that patient families face, paying for utilities, accommodations and more. In 2017, there were 165 requests totaling $94,451 which included support for telephone, gas/ heat, rent/mortgage, Target gift cards, education and memorial services.

A critical need the Hale Family Center for Families fulfills is a resource for patient family housing. To be at their child’s side at Boston Children’s Hospital, parents may leave their job, their home, other loved ones—and scramble for a place to stay in one of the costliest cities in the United States. Nearly 3,000 families from outside Massachusetts come to Boston Children’s each year for inpatient care. They soon discover that hotel rates are exorbitant. The financial burden can be crushing, diverting parents from their primary mission: to provide love, solace, and hope to their ailing child. That’s why we’ve made affordable patient family housing a top priority. Boston Children’s is committed to providing a safe, welcoming and convenient place to stay to all patient families who need one. Housing assistance is, of course, not covered by health insurance, so philanthropic support is essential. 

The hospital runs a Patient Family Housing Program which provides affordable accommodations for families while their children receive the medical care they need from Boston Children's. The program offers housing at three locations: the Devon Nicole House, the Yawkey Family Inn and units at the Longwood Galleria Apartments. Last year nearly 2,000 families stayed under our roofs for an average of 8 days each.

Wyatt, 2, has two airway conditions; he and his parents came to Boston Children’s from across the country to receive the highly specialized care he needs. Currently, Wyatt requires weekly treatments to stay healthy. Refusing to leave his side, his parents now live in a trailer in Massachusetts—while still facing household expenses in their home state, where their two other children live under their grandmother’s care. Wyatt’s father took a necessary unpaid leave from work, while Wyatt’s mother became a traveling nurse to make up the deficit. But, her single income couldn’t sustain two homes, three children and mounting medical care. Extraordinary needs funds alleviated significant stressors by helping with food, parking and electric bills, ensuring Wyatt’s parents could support their entire family, near and far.

 Your gift to the Every Child Fund does so much more than help our families catch a break. You allow parents to be fully present with their child—and to receive an extraordinary level of support, one we otherwise could not make possible.

Our most vital fund, the Every Child Fund empowers us to respond to a changing world with one goal: to give every child a healthy future. Your support enables us to treat the whole child, support families, and fund world-changing research.

To care for a sick child, parents may need to leave their jobs, put their lives on hold, and face overwhelming choices. Your gift supports our family-centered care: from big needs, like temporary housing and financial assistance, to small kindnesses that relieve stress. Families can focus on what's most important, their child. These services, so necessary and compassionate, are not covered by insurance.

• This year families spent 14,678 nights in safe, subsidized housing
• Over 20,000 meal vouchers sustained families
• Our parking program helps over 1,300 families in need
• Yoga classes, Reiki, massages, family coffee groups and other services ease stress
• Social workers and support sessions make families feel less alone

Many patients, like Harken use these services. Read her story, told by her mom Brooke to know what an impact you’ve made by donating to the Every Child Fund.

Bret and Brooke had built a wonderful life. But when their baby girl, Harken, got sick, they had to sacrifice everything to keep their family together. "You have visions of who they're going to be when they grow up. In one day, that was all over."

When one-year-old Harken failed a hearing test twice, her doctor sent her to Boston Children's. "The diagnosis was devastating," said Brooke. "Harken had Hurler's syndrome, also known as MPS1, a rare degenerative disease that attacks her whole body."

The first treatment step was a Bone Marrow Transplant. "It was hard to see her lose her hair and lose her being a kid. But our caregivers assured us that all we love about her would come back. Boston Children's was the best place to be. Everyone involved supported us with kindness and reassurance throughout the whole process of living at the hospital. Even massage sessions were provided to parents to lessen the stress."

"Then we brought Harken home. I was saddened to leave Boston Children's—they felt like family. We had to keep Harken quarantined for a year. I quit my job as a teacher to be with her all the time. No visitors were allowed into our home scrubbing the floors and toys were an everyday thing. We couldn't even have a Christmas tree. It was hard on Leyland: he had a sister he couldn't hug too tight or touch without washing his hands. Because I no longer worked, we struggled. But Boston Children's found us financial support. They helped with meals and parking. They even found Leyland a support group for siblings of terminally ill kids.”

After a while, we started to feel like a normal family again. I remember the first year we were allowed to have a real Christmas tree in our home again! Harken turned to me Christmas morning and said "I love you, Mom." The first time she said 'mom'. That meant the world to me."

"Today Harken attends preschool, which is amazing. You'd never know she has a terminal illness. She loves to come to Boston Children's for her treatments. They make it fun with stickers and art projects.

When they say 'Until every child is well,' that's how every person in Boston Children's feels. It's a beautiful place to deal with a not so beautiful ordeal. I would never go anywhere else."

Thank you for donating to the Every Child Fund.