Teen-Led Nonprofit Collecting Supplies for Children Receiving Healthcare in Rural Virginia
Helping Hands in Healthcare's holiday drive will support three rural hospitals, a mobile health clinic, and a teen mental health facility.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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Cora Shields may be young—a junior at Riverbend High School in Spotsylvania—but she already knows one of the keys to happiness.
The simple act of helping someone else “can really turn a bad day around,” she said.
This holiday season, Cora and the nonprofit she founded, Helping Hands in Healthcare, want to help hospitalized children and teens by providing them with small toys, activities, snacks, and encouraging notes.
Their goal is to raise $2,500 through a donation drive and this weekend’s Chips for Change casino night fundraiser to purchase and package the items for delivery to three rural hospitals—including Bon Secours Rappahannock General Hospital in the Northern Neck—as well as the Rappahannock Health District’s mobile health clinic and an area teen mental health facility.
Teens make up the entire leadership team of Helping Hands in Healthcare, which Cora established this year. The nonprofit was born out of her interest in giving back to the community as well as a desire to provide her peers with more opportunities for leadership and community service.
Through her volunteer work at UVA Health’s Culpeper Medical Center, Cora said she noticed that there wasn’t an established set-up for donating stuffed animals and other care items that can make a difference for hospitalized children.
Twenty-five hospitals in Virginia—including Mary Washington Hospital, Stafford Hospital, and Spotsyvlania Regional Medical Center—partner with the Jared Box organization to accept donations of care boxes for children, but oftentimes smaller and more rural facilities don’t have this set up.
Cora wanted to meet this need and she also thought, “What if students like me could get more involved in the community, especially in healthcare, because that’s what we’re interested in?”
Her parents helped her complete the paperwork to establish the nonprofit, but Cora runs it herself. She assembled an entire leadership team of fellow teens—peers she knew from service on Riverbend’s Student Council; through the Medical Careers Club, which she also founded; and through similar clubs at other county high schools.
There’s Deven Jani, vice president; Valentina Phan, director of impact; Eva Nix, volunteer director; Griffin Williford, director of community outreach; Jack Mills, director of events; and Sarah Lapier, mental health liaison.
The current drive is the nonprofit’s first major project, but it’s not Cora’s first major project. Earlier this year, she raised $2,000 to combat period poverty, which refers to a lack of access to menstrual products, hygiene facilities, waste management, and education that affects girls and women across the world.
“A lot of women in many parts of the world experience period poverty, and it can impact school attendance rates, which then affects economic outputs,” Cora said.
She used the funds to purchase “several hundred” pairs of reusable and absorbent period underwear. She also created an educational pamphlet in Spanish and developed a short program to demonstrate use of the underwear—and this past spring she traveled to Peru with her family to deliver the products with the nonprofit International Medical Relief.
A similar project might be Helping Hands in Healthcare’s next endeavor after the holiday drive, Cora said.
Though busy with school and soon, college applications and planning for life after graduation, Cora said she has lots of plans for the nonprofit and also intends to keep it running after she leaves Riverbend.
Saturday’s casino night fundraiser for Helping Hands in Healthcare at the Fawn Lake Country Club is sponsored by Virginia Pulmonary and Critical Care, LLC. In addition to casino games—played with “funny money”—there will be a silent auction with prizes donated by individuals and local businesses including Eden Try Winery, the Fredericksburg Food Coop, Fun Land, the Fredericksburg Nationals, Pepperberries of Culpeper, FXBG Yoga and Wellness, Icebox Creamery, Pup Shots Photos, Lee’s Hill Golf Club, Holly Bean Design, and the Fawn Lake Country Club.
To donate to the current campaign, visit here.
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