Benefit Set to Bring 'Cuddle Buddy' Comfort to Sick Kids
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| Meghan Schrade, 2, with her cuddle bears. |
Then it was a dozens more ill toddlers at Children's Hospital; a year later, it was friends and family scouring Wal-Marts near and far to send 90 of the Carter's Snuggle Buddies to the Boston medical center's cardiac unit.
This year, Tracy Bassette and William G. Schrade Jr. are hoping to make the donation an annual event with a benefit dance at the American Legion on Saturday night.
"Our goal is to get over a 100 of the 'cuddle buddies,'" said Schrade. "Every year we want to exceed what we did the year before."
The drive for the "buddies," part stuffed animal, part blanket, came about because of Meghan Schrade's unexpected, and frightening, trips to the hospital shortly after she was born.
She was born at North Adams Regional Hospital on May 4, 2006, and almost immediately transported to first Baystate Medical Center and then to Children's Hospital because of a serious heart condition. She went through open-heart surgery and has had pacemakers installed keep her little heart beating properly. She's now a thriving 2 1/2-year-old.
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Bassette said Meghan's Snuggle Buddy bear, her "gi-gi" bear, "played a crucial role in consoling our Meghan the Magnificent, as many call her. She has taken her bear into every surgery she has had and it has been admitted to each and every hospital visit."The first buddy was offered to a little boy whose family couldn't be with him in Boston. The nurses had given him a stuffed baseball, but it wasn't really something he could cuddle, said Schrade. "What people don't realize, and we saw it firsthand, some of these kids come to the hospital with absolutely nothing."
The next year, friends delivered a big basket of the buddies and Bassette met a woman whose infant granddaughter was in the intensive care unit with breathing difficulties.
"So I grabbed a pink 'cuddle buddy' and asked her to give it to her special angel," she said. "This woman, who did not know me from the next person, sobbed and hugged me so very tight while I whispered a few words of encouragement from a parent that had gone through something similar. If we can help even a couple of children find some comfort during what certainly is the scariest time many experience — the price of a cuddle buddy is insignificant."
The hospital gives blankets and stuffed animals to the children but the couple want to help those donations as a way of giving back, particularly to the cardiac care unit.
"What Children's Hospital did for us you can never repay," said Schrade. "It's absolutely priceless."
Tickets for the dance are $10; all proceeds will go to the cause. Doors open at 7 p.m. for snacks and raffles and dancing begins at 8 to DJ Carmen LaCasse of Final Destination Entertainment and popular local band BootLeg.
Wal-Mart is working with the family to get them enough of the buddies at a good rate. "Wal-Mart has been very gracious to us," said Schrade.
Rounding up first 60 and then last year 90 buddies hasn't been easy. It's meant stopping at any Wal-Mart they were near, hunting down the plush creatures
"We've cleaned them out over the last several years," he said. "That's kind of the fun journey part. It's made it quite interesting."
