Transcript:
Amanda Artim has raised over $21,000 for pediatric patients at Memorial Medical Center
It all started when my son was a patient here at Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center. He was in for four or five days and as I lay there with him I just thought I would love to do something to lift the spirits of the kids that are staying here.
He received tremendous care and I knew this was the best place for him but he was three-years-old and he didn’t know that. There was a little boy down the hall who my heart went out to and I wanted to be able to do something for the kids of our community so that is how it all started.
Right now we have raised $21,000 and that has been through a variety of different fundraisers, the most recent was a Chef Auction and that went really well. We’ve also done a basket party. We’ve done a community garage sale within the community development that I live in. Students at Cambria Rowe Business College also contributed. They’ve done some candle sales and have helped through raffles and things like that.
The ultimate result is to see kids smiling and feel okay about staying here. To get to that point we would like to paint the rooms, paint murals on the walls. We would like to put in some flat screen TVs. We would like to re-do the play area for each of the rooms. My son for instance, was Quarantine. He had to be kept in his room so he couldn’t come down to the playroom. It would be nice to have something for the children to play at in each room.
We’re going to have the cabinets where they store coats and things like that. Eventually we’d like to be able to do curtains and different things to brighten up the rooms.
It’s been overwhelming, especially as I do each event it gets a little bit stronger and people love to help a child. That’s what this is really about – helping the kids in our community so everyone is really behind it.
I couldn’t have asked for better people to work with. Sue and Debbie and all the staff at the Conemaugh Health Foundation have just been amazing. You can’t … each of these events takes so much time and effort and to have them behind me and supporting me and saying, “you can do this!” Because there are these moments when I say, “What am I doing? What am I thinking?” For them to tell me, “you can do this,” just to have their support. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without them.
There are so many things out there you can raise money for but this is for the children right here in our community, who live here every day, who might be your friend’s kids or anybody. I didn’t expect my son to be admitted to the hospital the day he did – you just never know and to be able to help the child right here in our community is what I want to be able to accomplish.