OSCAR LITWAK FOUNDATION
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Mission Statement
The Oscar Litwak Foundation's mission is to Lift the spirits of hospitalized children, with the goal to provide every hospitalized child in the US, access to play and entertainment while undergoing hospitalization and/or receiving long term medical care.
About This Cause
The OLF was founded in 2003 to honor the memory of Oscar Litwak, who passed away of cancer at age 4. Oscar spent a significant amount of his short life in hospitals, and this experience uncovered an unfulfilled need that to this day drives the charity’s mission of “Lifting the spirits of hospitalized children”, with the goal to provide every hospitalized child in the US, access to play and entertainment while undergoing hospitalization and/or receiving long term medical care. While going through the long-term hospitalization experience, Oscar’s parents realized that there were two very important, and yet very different components of pediatric hospitalization: 1) There is a medical component, where doctors and nurses perform everyday miracles to tend to the physical and medical needs of young patients, and do this with an incredible passion for science and a relentless pursuit of knowledge. 2) There is also a psychological side to hospitalization which becomes evident when the child is completely removed from the beauty and simplicity of everyday life and is immersed in an unfamiliar and threatening environment. The emotional impact caused by this drastic change is not always addressed in the hospital environment; even some institutions that are dedicated to address the medical needs of children, at times overlook or inadequately address a child’s need to play. At the end of the day, a hospitalized child, is still a child, and wants to play, learn and have fun. And re-introducing these activities into a child’s day, even if they are in limited capacity, will help the child cope with the medical treatments they are going through. To help support the mental well-being of hospitalized children, the Foundation has created and focused its work on these 2 key initiatives: - Providing Mobile Playrooms to hospitals and treatment centers so that hospitalized kids that can’t leave their room, can have a bit of fun brought to them. There are times when hospitalized children, due to their diagnosis, medical condition or treatment are unable to leave their room or even their bed, and cannot go to the traditional playroom, thus completely missing the opportunity to engage in any play. In addition, there are some facilities that do not have a playroom available at all and children are left to find entertainment on their own. The Mobile Playrooms are specially manufactured carts filled with toys, books, and arts and crafts that can be wheeled from one room to the next, serving a great number of patients in these conditions. The contents of each mobile playroom are customized to the needs of each hospital based on its patient population. - Visiting hospitals and doing activities with children. In usual times, these activities included organizing games, shows and activities for hospitalized children. During the last year, because hospital access has been restricted, we have focused our efforts on donating distraction kits to hospitalized children, which are little goodie bags with toys/ activities for kids to play with. In addition, we have been supporting the amazing work that nurses and doctors in Children’s hospital wings are doing by delivering them meals and snacks. The pandemic has hit hospitalized children especially hard, due to restricted visitor hospital access and limited or closed hospital playrooms. This is why during the last year our wait list for mobile playrooms has grown exponentially and why this is such a critical time to request for help in our fundraising efforts, so that our program can reach every hospitalized child in need of comfort. The Mobile Playroom is the perfect solution for providing hospitalized children access to play, while being socially distant and keeping with current safety protocols. Hospitals have seen the positive impact the Mobile Playrooms have had, and recognize these as the most successful solution to the current limitations imposed by social distancing safety protocols, and are asking for a record number of additional carts for their facilities. Throughout the years, the Oscar Litwak Foundation has placed almost 140 Mobile Playrooms, and our constraint to do even more in this critical time is due to limited financial resources. As you can imagine, the pandemic has made it even harder to raise funds through our usual means and events. We are very efficient with our funds, ~97% of every dollar raised by the Oscar Litwak Foundation is directly related to the Mobile Playroom and associated programs. And each Mobile Playroom donation includes the initial stock of toys, games, books and arts & crafts, as well as replacement of all contents that get used, damaged or lost for a period of at least two-years after the Mobile Playroom’s original placement. We welcome any and all donations! Please feel free to contact us through our website for any comments or questions. Thank you very much for your kindness and generosity!