Send birthday cards for children in the hospital

I’ve decided what I want for my 40th birthday. I want you to help me collect birthday cards for children in the hospital. Although I’ve structured a blog around it, I don’t really care about my birthday. You know who cares about birthdays? Kids. You know what would suck as a kid? Being in the hospital for your birthday. I want to collect a lot of awesome birthday cards that Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago can distribute to to children in the hospital on their birthdays.

I wasn’t sure what the donations coordinator at Lurie would think of the idea of collecting birthday cards for children in the hospital, but she thought it was great. She said that often they don’t know in advance that a child will be in the hospital on his or her birthday, which leaves the hospital staff scrambling to do something special. The goal of this project is to give the staff a collection of cards and maybe some other goodies that they can go to whenever they need to celebrate the birthday of a kid in the hospital.

I’ll be collecting unused birthday cards until my birthday, April 21. Then I’ll organize them and deliver them to Lurie.

Here are some guidelines for the types of cards needed.

• Cards should be new and unused.
• Cards for a variety of ages are needed since Lurie has patients from newborns to 20 year olds.
• The hospital cannot distribute cards with religious content.
• If you choose to make a card and want to use glitter, please use glitter glue rather than dried glitter that can be glued to a surface.

Although my idea was to collect birthday cards since I’m doing this to celebrate my own birthday, other uplifting cards are also welcome. The hospital recommends messages like “Stay strong” and “You’re awesome.” Avoid the obvious “Get well soon.” Let’s make these happy diversions!

Mail your cards before April 21 to

Kim Z. Dale
Card for Kids
[NO LONGER ACCEPTING DONATIONS]

I look forward to your help in act of kindness to bring some joy to children in the hospital on their birthdays.

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