In a Time of Medical Confusion, Election Chaos and Economic Turmoil, One Thing Is Always Certain: Sick Kids Can’t Wait.
“Right, where were we?” Elyse Meardon, Vice President of Programming at Children’s Miracle Network (CMN), asks. CMN is a nonprofit that provides membership and funding for children’s hospitals across the United States.
Meardon sits down with a huff as she plops back down on her gray sectional. She begins to recall her stay at Boise State University, where she helped oversee their university’s very first charity dance marathon. Students filled the room with nervous excitement. When the gymnasium's doors swung open, a parade of family patrons from the local children's hospital, St. Luke's, poured into the building.
She notes one particular family that anxiously hovered by the outer perimeters of the room. “They were nearly hugging the wall,” Meardon said.
But the young son, Sam, confidently strutted out to the very middle of the dance floor. The college students cheered him on and offered to dance with him. Still by the wall, his mom silently sobbed.
“She was crying with me and kept repeating ‘They know who he is, this is so cool!” Meardon laughed lightly as she recalled the emotional woman.
But, in this one moment, Sam was just any other little boy. He was able to hang out with people that looked at him as Sam, and not as the sick kid with physical disabilities.
Sam, as a patient, is medically complex. He's in a wheelchair part of the time and most of his communication is nonverbal. But, in this one moment, Sam was just any other little boy. He was able to hang out with people that looked at him as Sam, and not as the sick kid with physical disabilities.
“I turned to her and told her, ‘This is what the dance marathon is,’” Meardon said. “‘It's these really incredible students who want to stand up and be there for your family and be there for this cause. It doesn't matter if they’ve known you for 10 years or 10 minutes-- they show up.’”
After pausing for a moment, her lips curled into a light smile, and said, “I don’t think I’ll ever forget that moment.”
But this dance marathon happened well before 2020-- when dance marathons could still happen. Today, these moments are merely memories of a time before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States in February of 2020, which forced Children’s Miracle Network and many other charity organizations to cancel all in-person events in accordance with the Center for Disease Control’s guidelines. The University of Pittsburgh’s sponsored dance marathon, Pitt Dance Marathon (PDM), had to quickly adapt their 2020 dance marathon to completely virtual. According to Rachael Strayer, PDM’s Director of Operations, the change was overwhelmingly fast.
“PDM usually takes place in March,” Stayer said. “We had PDM 2020 already completely planned when we had to, all of a sudden, start from scratch on a platform we never used before.”
PDM 2020 mostly relied on social media campaigns posted to their official Instagram, and casual Tik Toks of staff encouraging viewers to donate. In 2020, PDM raised $172,217.40 which is a dramatic decrease from the $338,609.34 raised the year prior.
But the difficulties that the COVID-19 pandemic brings still does not stop non-profits, like PDM, from fighting for a chance to make the world a better place.
This one’s for you, Miracle Kids. Everything we do is for you.
“We can all agree that everything that could have gone wrong, did [go wrong],” an official PDM Instagram post from March reads. “However, the best part about Pitt Dance Marathon is that it’s more than just a student organization, it's a family. This one’s for you, Miracle Kids. Everything we do is for you.”
Even for nonprofits that provide essential services such as CMN, the pandemic has radically changed their fundraising goals. Meardon said that due to the lack of in-person fundraising events, CMN has faced a dramatic decrease in financial numbers.
“Our fundraising goal this year was originally $45 million,” Meardon said. “Now, we're anticipating coming in probably between $30 and $33 million,” Meardon said.
As hospitals spend more money on COVID supplies and non-essential surgeries get postponed, their disposable income dwindles. As a result, while CMN still continues to provide donations to children’s hospitals around the nation, some of their hospital partners are struggling to pay their membership dues.
“We are looking at a 16 percent decrease from 2019 financial numbers, which doesn't sound like that much, but it's nearly $75 million,” Meardon said. “In particular, that’s a significant loss for a number of hospitals we serve.”
Even at a student level, COVID has impacted how organizations can fundraise. Strayer said the lack of constant in-person campaigning has significantly impacted PDM’s fundraising goals.
“We don't have a fundraising goal this year,” Strayer said. “Because we lost so much money, we're really just trying to do our best.”
This problem is, though, that while child medical advocacy groups like CMN lose fundraising money, the sick children they serve cannot wait this pandemic out. While COVID rages on, hospital staff are stretched thin and most hospital funding is being spent on pandemic equipment, not on children with chronic illnesses.
For some people, the pandemic is “not that big of a deal” and assert that children are at low risk for the most extreme symptoms. Meardon rejects this notion, believing that no child should have to suffer.
Because then the question is exactly how many kids is it okay to have passed away from any disease?
“It's very interesting to see people say, ‘Oh, but not that many die,’” Meardon said. “Because then the question is exactly how many kids is it okay to have passed away from any disease? The acceptable answer is zero.”
Donate to Children's Miracle Network: https://childrensmiraclenetworkhospitals.org/donate/
Donate to Pitt Dance Marathon: https://pdm.pitt.edu/donate-2/