Our New Year’s Resolution: Reaching Over One Million Sick Kids

Happy New Year! As Starlight starts this year off, we’re excited to share our New Year’s resolution with you. We want to deliver happiness to over one million kids in 2021.

This year, more than three million kids in the U.S. will be hospitalized.

From painful medical treatments to prolonged stays that take them away from their friends, these kids and their families will face scary, stressful, and often life-changing experiences. They will miss out on all the things that make being a kid so fun.

Last year, Starlight heard from health care partners, kids, and families across the country just how critical Starlight programs were in providing a sense of normalcy in a very abnormal year.

• We heard how Starlight Gaming stations entertained sick kids and helped preserve critical PPE because they come preloaded with fun games.

• We heard how Starlight Deliveries provided hours of entertainment while playrooms were closed.

• We heard how Starlight Gowns brought smiles to hospitalized kids by transforming them into some of their favorite movie characters, and sports players.

• We heard how Starlight Virtual Reality transported kids stuck in hospital rooms into new worlds they explored from their beds.

COVID-19 will continue to impact the hospital experience this year.

Children's healthcare facilities are still limiting visitors, closing communal play areas, and health care works are stretched thin as we see a surge in coronavirus cases. Starlight will be there through all this, helping to provide much-needed joy and distraction for so many kids.

Our New Year's resolution means helping over one million hospitalized kids experience happiness during the most challenging time of their lives. Because if 2020 has taught us anything, it's that kids need to be kids even if they're stuck in the hospital.

We can't reach over one million kids alone—we need your help.