Children's Health Foundation

On the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Unit at Children's Hospital, some walls feature paintings of trees.

Each leaf on the tree comes from the thumbprint of a patient being treated in the inpatient, outpatient, eating disorder and day treatment programs. It's a powerful symbol of connectedness for kids facing diagnoses that can often be isolating, and serves as a reminder that we can all grow and reach our potential.

Look as awesome as our incredible volunteer Lindsey when you swing by the Children’s Pop-up Shop today! We're in the B Atrium at Children’s Hospital London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) from noon until 4 p.m.

Grab a T-shirt, crew neck, Dr. BG pins, and more! Cash, debit, and credit are all accepted.

Can't swing by? Visit us online at shopchf.ca!📱💻

Airshow London isn't just the Best Air Show in North America according to USA Today for the past three years running - it's also a supporter of local charities, including Children's Health Foundation!

A portion of the proceeds of the event fund life-saving and life-enhancing equipment and programs at Children's Hospital, TVCC and Children's Health Research Institute.

See the RCAF Snowbirds, the RAF Red Arrows Aerobatic Team, the USAF F-16 Demonstration Team and so much more up close, and help your community in the process!

Airshow London runs September 13-15 and tickets are on sale now! https://airshowlondon.com/

GREAT LAKES RIDE made it back to Children’s Hospital today! Congrats on riding nearly 1,000km and helping kids across Western Ontario who need the best medical care.

Our heartfelt thanks to Dairy Queen for making Miracle Treat Day happen! You welcomed our Children's Heroes Ambassadors into your stores and every minute of your hard work and dedication are truly appreciated! You help bring the best care and the most hope to thousands of sick and injured kids.

Thank you to everyone who purchased a Blizzard on Miracle Treat Day! We don't know exactly how many Blizzards you purchased yesterday - but it was A LOT!

Seeing your smiles inspires us! Pop into our "2024 Miracle Treat Day!" album to check out exactly how cool you all looked! (https://www.facebook.com/share/xX64g5TszgUP1ctx/)

We can't wait to do it all again next year!🥰

Did you miss out on Dairy Queen ? We have vouchers for that!

Yes, you can still get a Blizzard at Dairy Queen that helps sick and injured kids in our community, even though the big day is over.

Vouchers are available in singles or packs of five to share with your family, friends or coworkers and are redeemable at participating locations until December 31, 2024.

Get your Miracle Treat Day vouchers right here: https://childhealth.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.event&eventID=594

Participating locations:
Alymer ON - 25 Progress Dr.
Chatham ON - 407 St. Clair St.
Exeter ON - 190 Main St. N
Kincardine ON - 708a Queen St
London ON - 1160 Highbury Ave N
London ON - White Oaks Mall
Owen Sound ON - 888 3rd Ave E
Sarnia ON - 1400 Exmouth St
St. Thomas ON - 54a - 417 Wellington St
Stratford ON - 590 Ontario St
Windsor ON - 13300 Tecumseh Rd. E

I'm supporting Children's Health Foundation! Children’s Health Foundation believes that children and their families in Western Ontario deserve the best possible care and the most possible hope when faced with a serious health issue. That is why we are calling on caring people to help strengthen and transform the health care experience in our...

We know you're loving seeing our Children's Heroes Ambassadors at your local for Miracle Treat Day! (We love them so much!) But, there are even MORE local heroes who have come out to enjoy the day!

made sure to grab their own Blizzards this afternoon AND want to share a special surprise with you!

Today at 7pm at the Dairy Queen on 1980 Dundas St our local firefighters are showing up in a VERY special ride!!! 🚒🚒🚒 We hope you join us!

It's a perfect day for a Blizzard - it's Miracle Treat Day!!!

Today, we're asking you to eat a Blizzard for Marley, a sweet kid with a rare bone marrow condition who relies upon the wonderful care at Children's Hospital.

When you buy a Blizzard on , you're helping thousands of other kids just like Marley, too.

Last year, participating Dairy Queen locations across the London area raised $92,000 on Miracle Treat Day.

Since our partnership with Dairy Queen began 34 years ago, Dairy Queen has raised over $2,155,433 for programs, research, education, and equipment at Children’s Hospital, LHSC.

By buying Blizzards on Miracle Treat Day, you've helped set up 4 parental and baby care programs, 6 family navigation and comfort programs, 6 innovation and research initiatives, 12 mental health and emotional safety programs for children and youth, 6 medical resource programs, and countless pieces of medical equipment.

It's a special day. Happy Miracle Treat Day, everybody!

GREAT LAKES RIDE is off to the races!

Starting bright and early yesterday morning, this group of nine bikers is cycling through communities like Owen Sound, Collingwood, Simcoe and more to make a huge difference in the lives of young patients at Children's Hospital.

They're challenging themselves to ride nearly 1,000 km and raise $30,000 in just six days for our kids! Learn more or support them here: https://childhealth.ca/events/great-lakes-ride-2024/

Dr. Beary Goode started our Miracle Treat Day party early at Children's Hospital!

With the help of the incredible team at Dairy Queen - 1160 Highbury Ave North - and President of Children's Hospital, Nash Syed, our friends on the sixth floor got to spend quality time with their favourite bear and delicious Blizzards!

Don't miss out on your chance to help Dr. BG's friends - our kids! Grab your Dairy Queen Blizzard this Thursday, August 8!

“You cannot prepare for or fathom the learning curve that comes from having a baby and learning to breastfeed. The nights are lonely, and the frustration is real.” - New mom Claire.

For , we spoke with London Ontario Midwives at London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) on how they help new parents navigate that frustrating learning curve in the first couple of weeks after birth — and how they still make house calls to do it.

Read more right here: https://childhealth.ca/new-parents-help-breastfeeding-home-midwife/

It's August but there's lots of summer left!

If you're looking for things to do on those dog days of summer to have some fun, we have some ideas you can use to raise funds for sick and injured kids in our community at the same time!

Lemonade Stand - a summertime classic
Game Night - charge your guests $5 a game, let the winner take home half and donate the other half
Sell Freezies - Cool customers down with $1 Jumbo freezies!
Jelly Bean Guessing Jar - Fill a large jar with jelly beans (or gummy bears, sour keys, whatever you like), counting as you go, and ask for $1 per guess - closest guess gets half the pot (and maybe the jelly beans, too)
Field Day - Set up outdoor games stations and ask for donations to use each of them

What's your go-to summer fun-raiser? Let us know in the comments!

Our sincere thanks to the Optimist Club of Kerwood-Adelaide-Metcalfe and their many supporters, who raised $14,300 for Children's Health Foundation with the Joanne Sanders Memorial Golf Tournament on July 29.

Joanne, who passed away late last year, was a longtime supporter of the Bravery Bead program at Children's Hospital, which helps kids document their health care journeys. The funds donated to Children's Health Foundation will be directed to the Bravery Bead program in Joanne's memory.

It's Andie and Marley week!

For both girls, adapting to hospital visits and blood transfusions took time and a lot of help. Children's Hospital's Child Life Specialists played an important role in supporting the girls and their families.

Diamond-Blackfan Anemia means a lot of needle pokes. Child Life Specialist Deb helped Marley and her parents understand every step of the treatments, demonstrating on a doll. Marley likes to be talked to and to know what's happening.

For Andie, needle pokes were especially difficult because even experienced nurses had challenges accessing her veins. Andie grew to dread each poke. So, Child Life Specialist Melissa worked with Andie to develop some coping strategies, and she provided a calming presence for her needle pokes.

Blood transfusion days are typically 6-7 hour hospital visits, and it's not just Child Life that has helped the girls through their long days. Marley has enjoyed painting and making crafts with art therapists, and Andie and her sister Hannah built a strong connection with Ollie the Therapeutic Clown.

"The girls look for him every time we are at Children’s. They just think he is hilarious," Andie's mom says. "I think he is great and does a fantastic job! He is wonderful. He includes Hannah in everything as well. I really appreciate that about Children’s Hospital. They don’t just look at Andie, they look at our family. When we go to leave everyone wants a hug from Andie and Hannah. Not just Andie. They love Hannah just as much as they love Andie and I love that about Children’s."

Marley's parents agree that Children's Hospital has gone above and beyond for their family, saying that they feel genuinely cared for and loved by everyone, and that it shows up in many small ways.

We hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about Marley and Andie this week. They’re amazing kids, and there are thousands more like them who pass through Children’s Hospital every day. Even just one Blizzard purchased for Dairy Queen helps! We hope your remember Marley and Andie and stop by your local Dairy Queen one week from today, Miracle Treat Day, for a very special Blizzard.

Beat the heat with a frosty treat and help support a great cause on August 6🍦☀️ We’re setting up a root beer float stand at the entrance to raise donations for the London Children’s Hospital. Come by, stay cool and support the community! 💙

Happy Birthday to our Champion Child, Cole, who turns 18 today!

Cole has more than lived up to his champion title, representing Children's Health Foundation at events like Children's Hospitals Week in Florida and making appearances to help raise funds to benefit countless other kids like him.

We're so proud of Cole for already being such an amazing role model, and we're so happy he's our Children's Miracle Network Canada Champion Child.

It's Andie and Marley Week!

That Marley and Andie found each other so close to home was a bit of luck. Since meeting, they've been fast friends.

Andie and Marley understand one another in a way not many others can. They bond over the ways that Diamond Blackfan Anemia impacts their lives and also help each other get through the tough days. On a handful of occasions, they were at Children's Hospital for blood transfusions at the same time and were able to play together.

As Marley has someone who's been through it all before to talk to, Marley's parents can also lean on Andie's parents and learn from their experience. It has made such a difference for all of them to know they're not alone.

While much of Marley’s journey remains ahead of her, so far she’s tolerated her blood transfusions well. There are no guarantees that she’ll have as tough a road as Andie has had.

Andie’s experiences in Children’s Hospital has her exploring a career in imaging. Inspired by an ultrasound she had when she was 10, Andie has expressed interest in joining the Medical Radiologist Technologist (MRT) team at London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC). Members of the MRT team even invited her on a tour of LHSC imaging facilities.

She's looking forward to helping others in the same way that she's been helped...

It's Andie and Marley Week!

While blood transfusions helped little Andie along, they weren't without their own issues.

When patients undergo blood transfusions as often as Andie needs to, iron can build up to dangerous levels, potentially causing organ failure or cardiac arrest. The excess iron must be filtered out of the patient's system, a process known as chelation.

Finding the right chelating medications in the right doses can be tricky and time consuming, however. Andie's initial chelating meds worked until they didn't, leaving her with sky-high hemoglobin levels. They had to get special permission to try a new, experimental drug, the dosing of which caused further issues. All this before her third birthday!

It has been an incredibly long, incredibly difficult road for Andie, from medication complications to chronic stomach pain to growth deficiency and skeletal dysplasia to crippling anxiety and a feeding tube — all with blood transfusions every three to five weeks.

Her doctors tried several avenues to cure her DBA, including steroids that did help increase her red blood cell production, but unfortunately not faster than her body used them up, and they altered her personality. Andie still felt the effects of the steroids years after stopping them.

Just last year, when Andie was 15, she received a bone marrow transplant. Finally, for the first time in her life, her body produced its own red blood cells. Even that came with complications for Andie, as she experienced graft vs host disease, requiring immune suppressant therapy.

Along the way, Andie also met a young patient who happened to have the same condition — and they struck up a moving friendship...

It's Andie and Marley Week!

Yesterday, we told you a little about Marley — today, we'd like to share some of Andie's story.

Now 16, Andie started showing signs of her condition when she was much younger than Marley — at just six weeks old. Although she was born a perfectly healthy 6 lbs., 2 oz., she soon started to appear pale, almost porcelain-skinned. When she started coughing, vomiting, and running a fever, Andie's parents knew it was time to seek medical help.

At first, doctors thought Andie was looking normal, but at nine weeks the vomiting progressed to the point that Andie's parents took her to Children's Hospital. It took three nurses to get an IV in Andie's arm, and soon after some blood had been drawn, health care workers started to swarm.

With her hemoglobin level at just 22 — low enough that an adult would be unconscious or dead — Andie was moved to the Paediatric Critical Care Unit and she underwent her first blood transfusion. She needed two more over the next eight hours.

For weeks, little Andie endured test after test, but her health care team couldn't figure out what was causing her hemoglobin levels to keep dropping after blood transfusions.

Finally, a DNA test after a bone marrow procedure found the cause: Diamond-Blackfan Anemia.

For both Andie and Marley, the diagnosis means a lifetime of hospital visits for continued testing and blood transfusions. And in Andie's case, it has been much more than that...

It's your last chance to beat the lines and pre-order your Blizzards for Dairy Queen !

Get your pre-orders in while you still can right here: https://childhealth.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.event&eventID=590

It's Andie and Marley Week, and we're kicking it off with a special day - it's Marley's birthday!

With Dairy Queen just around the corner, we'd like to share more about our Children's Heroes Ambassadors for the event, Andie and Marley, who you've seen in our recent promotional videos. This whole week is their week.

Marley — who turns FIVE today!!! — started showing signs that something wasn't quite right a few months before her third birthday. It all came on so gradually, her parents almost missed it. But, over the course of a few weeks, their normally boisterous, silly daughter grew pale and irritable, preferring to cuddle up rather than burn energy. When her parents added everything up, they decided to take Marley to see her paediatrician.

With Marley's symptoms pointing to an iron deficiency, the paediatrican ordered bloodwork, which her parents had done that afternoon. When the results came in a couple of hours later, Marley's parents were told to take her directly to the emergency department at Children's Hospital.

Marley had her first blood transfusion that day, and it made an immediate improvement. However, the doctors were still confused about her condition. So, Marley was admitted to the hospital, and multiple tests were run, including an X-ray, bone marrow tests and more blood work.

During Marley's five-day stay in the hospital, the family met Dr. Tole, who introduced them to a possible diagnosis: Diamond-Blackfan Anemia, a condition in which the body can't make its own red blood cells. It would take time to confirm, but indeed, that's what Marley has.

And although Diamond-Blackfan Anemia only occurs in about five-to-seven out of every million babies, Marley wasn't alone in Western Ontario...

Can't make it to DQ Miracle Treat Day on August 8, but still want to participate? Introducing DQ Miracle Treat Day Vouchers!

Dairy Queen Vouchers are available in singles or packs of five and can be redeemed for a Blizzard (excluding Royal Blizzard Treats) until December 31!

Redeemable at participating Dairy Queen locations.
Participating locations:
Alymer ON - 25 Progress Dr.
Chatham ON - 407 St. Clair St.
Exeter ON - 190 Main St. N
Kincardine ON - 708a Queen St
London ON - 1160 Highbury Ave N
London ON - White Oaks Mall
Owen Sound ON - 888 3rd Ave E
Sarnia ON - 1400 Exmouth St
St. Thomas ON - 54a - 417 Wellington St
Stratford ON - 590 Ontario St
Windsor ON - 13300 Tecumseh Rd. E

Order vouchers right here: https://childhealth.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.event&eventID=594

Congratulations on another successful Get Your Kick On at East Park London, which raised $13,116 in support of kids and families in Western Ontario facing life-threatening and life-changing diagnoses!

Thank you to McKenzie Lake Lawyers LLP, Neuphysio and everyone who put their best feet forward for a great day filled with sunshine and laughter. ⚽️⛳

Children's Health Foundation Youth Philanthropy Group (YPG) is now accepting applications!

The members of our YPG gain valuable experience with fundraising, event planning and building relationships, and most importantly, they get to have fun while helping to transform children's health care!

Composed of 10-15 driven and passionate 14-24 year olds, our YPG makes a difference for kids and families at Children's Hospital.

Does that sound like you or someone you know? To apply, fill out the YPG Application Form right here,https://childhealth.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/YPG-Application-form-2024-2025.pdf and email it to Maysee at [email protected]

Applications close Wednesday, August 7!

What do you think?

Blake Shelton, Faith Hill & Jack Black Serve Up Spatula Designs in New Williams Sonoma Collaboration This is the 10th anniversary of the Tools for Change campaign, which see celebrities design new spatulas for sale, with proceeds to No Kid Hungry.

It's a milestone day for Children's Heroes Ambassador Teaghan - her 200th infusion!

Teaghan has a genetic liver condition called lysosomal acid lipase deficiency (LAL-D). Her treatments require enzyme replacement infusions every other week at Children's Hospital. Her mom says that the treatments turned Teaghan's life around, allowing her to grow four inches in height.

Now, Teaghan can be an active teenager, swimming and playing baseball and doing so much normal, everyday teen stuff.

With such regular visits, Children's Hospital has become a second home for Teaghan and her family, and her health care team made sure to make a big deal out of Teaghan's milestone.

"It is hard to put into words just how incredibly fortunate and grateful we are to have Children's Hospital and CHF so close to home, as we know that many patients and their families have to travel hours," Teaghan's mom says.

"Teaghan has been through soo much over the last 10 years; from blood tests, ultrasounds, x-rays, a liver biopsy, clinic appointments, genetic testing, diagnoses of two rare liver diseases, and 200 infusions, and through it all we have never once felt alone or that we didn’t have support and guidance.

"The love and support that we have received over the years is out of this world, and we cannot thank everyone enough for everything that they have done and continue to do for Teaghan and our family. Teaghan is doing quite well and is healthy and thriving, and although she will continue to have to have biweekly infusions, I know that we wouldn’t be where we are today without our amazing hospital family.

"From the bottom of our hearts, thank you!!"

When you purchase a DQ Blizzard on Miracle Treat Day, you get so much more than a delicious treat.

You're supporting kids like Andie and Marley by helping to fund equipment like the IV poles they need for their regular blood transfusions. Donors fund nearly 100% of the equipment at Children's Hospital!

So go ahead and indulge on Miracle Treat Day. You're helping to provide the best possible care and most possible hope for thousands of kids like Andie and Marley.

The last day to place a pre-order and beat the lines is July 29 - you can get your order in right here: https://childhealth.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.event&eventID=590https://childhealth.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.event&eventID=590. Otherwise, we hope to see you in-store on August 8!

I'm supporting Children's Health Foundation! Children’s Health Foundation believes that children and their families in Western Ontario deserve the best possible care and the most possible hope when faced with a serious health issue. That is why we are calling on caring people to help strengthen and transform the health care experience in our...

Reminder: tomorrow is National Ice Cream Day - which means it's your chance to Dip It for Kids at your local Dairy Queen!

When you order a $0.50 small vanilla cone, and upgrade it to "Dip it for Kids" for an additional $1, you get a delicious dipped cone while also helping Children's Hospital.

Download the Dairy Queen App to get in on this exclusive offer!