The 2013 “Every Gift Matters” holiday campaign has arrived with a new commercial and an amazing group of patients to inspire you.
Once again we turn to our community, at this giving time of year, to ask for your support. A gift now can help fund care and research year-round and all gifts stay right here to help children in our own community.
If you haven’t seen the commercial take a look here:
Planning for the campaign begins months in advance but our holiday commercial was filmed just last month. People sometimes ask me if the children in our commercials are all patients and absolutely yes, they’re all our patients and this year the children featured are recovering from some heart-breaking challenges including debilitating burns, chronic illness, car accidents and brave battles with pediatric cancer. Filming these messages is always a memorable experience (with many smiles and many tears). Especially this year as patients shared what they love most about the holidays and (in many cases) what they’ll be missing because of extended hospital stays.
A few special moments from “behind the camera”
- Brady – Age 5 – He opens our commercial and makes us smile with his line “I like wrapping presents and opening presents” – Brady’s ability to speak is a miracle – especially since his tongue was completely reconstructed following a 10-hour cancer surgery. It’s rare for a child to develop cancer of the mouth and you’d never know that Brady’s tongue was rebuilt using tissue from his forearm.
- Faith- Age 7 – Her wish, just to be home for the holidays, closes our commercial and truly moved everyone to tears. Faith is battling brain cancer and undergoing a very aggressive period of her treatment that will require her to be hospitalized during the holidays. Her simple wish – spoken from the heart – is what this campaign is all about.
You will be hearing more about our campaign in the weeks ahead. A special thanks to our staff who appear in the commercial Dr. Ed Shepherd, our section chief of Neonatology, Dr. Sandra Kim, a GI physician and researcher, and two of our amazing nurses Stephanie Johnson and Rose Smith. A special thank you also to our amazing production team led by Nationwide Children’s staffer Jane Abel and our agency Conrad, Phillips and Vutech.
We welcome your questions and comments about Every Gift Matters and I hope everyone can make the holidays brighter with your support.
The post “Every Gift Matters”-Behind The Camera appeared first on 700 Children's.
