Crafts that Care

Not many people aspire to one day become a doctor, even fewer a surgeon in the ER. Even fewer of those people get their start doing arts and crafts in the Children's Oncology wing.

For her Senior Project, Marlie Adamson brought a little holiday spirit into the lives of children struggling with cancer through holiday-themed arts and crafts.

The inspiration for this project came to Adamson because she loves working with kids, “and I eventually want to be a doctor and I really decided to do this project after talking to my moms friend who is a nurse.” Adamson recalled that, “she suggested that I do something with them over the holidays because [the children] get really lonely.”

Adamson had already done volunteer work at Sharp Hospital but specifically for her project, Adamson said that for the first step, “I had to become a Kaiser volunteer.”

After becoming a volunteer, Adamson, “had to lesson plan and learn how to work with hospitalized children.” Working with hospitalized children can be more difficult, she said, because of their mobility.

After Adamson completed those two main steps, she was ready to do her actual project which consisted of three separate crafts on three different days.

Adamson explained how her project played out, “I actually did the three arts and crafts activities with the children. For the first activity we made hand print turkeys.” She went on to say, “the second two activities were winter themed, the first one was making snowmen that were also magnets, and the second winter themed activity was painting on glass ornaments.”

Like every senior project, Adamson’s project had its difficulties. Adamson reflected back, “I would say trying to work with kids that were so sick that they weren't really mobile was the most challenging part of my project.” Adamson also said she had to worry about, “making sure that they had fun without feeling bad because a lot of them are very sick.”

Adamson did have some help along the way, as the nurses at the hospital were all very helpful. She also said that she got some great advice from her consultant, “she said, ‘you have to put it in perspective from these kids. They are stuck in these beds and anything you do matters to them, even if it's not going perfectly from our point of view.’”

Adamson noted how touched she felt, “hearing the reactions from the parents and nurses saying how much the kids liked it and how much it meant to them, because I didn't expect that.”