Dear associates, clients, friends and family
With thanks to you, last year Emily’s House Children’s Hospice overflowed with a mountain of toys and holiday gifts. This year, our Frank Leo & Associates Emily’s House Holiday Gift Drive in Memory of Ava is going to be low-contact, due to COVID-19, for the safety of these medically-fragile children.
In response to COVID-19, Emily’s House has been providing music therapy, recreational play, video broadcasts of accessible activities, respite programming, and Zoom group supports to help these children and their families. From a physical distance, they have been delivering normalcy, fun and joy. Therapies and activities for children are being modified, adapted and delivered as safely as possible to add quality to life.
To do this more effectively, technology needs to be in the hands of these families. So, this year’s holiday wish list includes items like tablets, computer laptops, and Chrome Books. This year we are encouraging the online donations of funds which will be collected to make a group purchase of technology for children receiving hospice care. Additional funds to be applied to the items on the 2020 Wish List which are so critical in assisting families during this difficult time.
Although Emily's House will not be holding their annual in person Family Holiday Party this year, they are planning a pop-up toy/gift event, free and safe for their client families by pre-booked appointment.
The 2020 Wish List for the Holidays during COVID-19:
Your donations will make a difference for a child, like Lucas, and his family.
A child is born … and a love story begins. In 2018, Baby Lucas’s parents shared: “We had to make a choice. Something no one would ever have to make: an impossible choice. We chose to stop the aggressive medical intervention and to focus on enjoying the time we had left with Lucas…. Emily’s House is a children’s hospice: a place to be free with Lucas in a non-hospital environment. We got to see how he reacted outside of a hospital setting: He loved it. These moments were the best we had with him, but every moment was just one closer to saying goodbye. If we had to say “goodbye,” we wanted to make sure he knew and felt the love all around him. We wanted him to experience a Christmas with his family. We could not have asked for a better present on Christmas day. I know he felt the love from everyone around him, and he honestly never seemed happier to me.”
Read BABY LUCA’s STORY
Philip Aziz Centre for Hospice Care and Emily’s House provide medical respite, practical, emotional, grief and bereavement support to people living with life-limiting illnesses in the comfort of their own home, or in Toronto’s first paediatric residential hospice. Emily's House also provides children's recreation, music therapy and day camps. Their programs support children, adults, caregivers, siblings and survivors at no cost to them.
For more information on the incredible work being done at Emily's House, please visit the website: https://www.emilyshouse.ca/ and view the following videos:
Please consider giving the gift of hospice by donating before December 12th and help reach families in need this season.
DONATE ONLINE TODAY