For 17 years, since the summer of 1993, the Toy Closets program at Yale-New Haven Hospital has been making the lives of children and their families a little brighter during tough times.

As the founder of this program I continue to marvel at the stories of those who have been touched.

How did this start? As a news reporter in Oklahoma City I went out to do a story on a toy closet in a hospital. I had no idea how it would change my life.

I watched as a little girl braved her way  thru a bone marrow aspiration. She had leukemia. Following the procedure in which no anesthesia can be used, she was given a a worn red ribbon to which was affixed a key. She knew what this was because she had been thru this before.

She climbed off the table and went down the hall and opened up a toy closet with her key and picked out a brand new toy. It was a baby doll. She held the doll and rocked it in her tiny little arms and said…”it’s going to be okay.” Trying to fight back tears, I thought if I could ever help to make a difference in the lives of children I would. That little girl did not make it thru her cancer.

Fast forward, I come to Connecticut, Yale is about to add a children’s wing onto it’s hospital, and that was the chance to do something similar in New Haven. It worked with the help of so many and now we’re 17 years down the line.

Hundreds of thousands of toys, large and small have been handed out to sick children. We have built a playground indoors and out. We have done a ton of outreach in poor communities. The giving goes on and those who have been helped, help right back in donations.

What is so beautiful about this program is that it has remained grass roots. Schools will collect pennies and give them to the program. Motorcycle groups will gather and do a toy drive around the holidays. The Toy Closet Golf Outing has raised tens of thousands over many years. It’s all people helping children.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Ann Nyberg

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