Blue Shield of California employees truly got into the spirit of giving by taking part in a community service experience to help put smiles on the faces of some well deserving kids affiliated with Los Angeles Children’s Hospitals. The result of their efforts was a generous donation of 200 brand new stuffed animals and 200 super hero capes. The event took place on Feb. 12 at the JW Marriott Live in Los Angeles.
Blue Shield of California worked with Impact 4 Good (www.impact4good.com), a company that runs socially conscious teambuilding programs, to plan an event that would allow for employees to engage in a give back activity throughout their day of meetings. The program selected was called “Bears & Capes 4 Kids”. During the activity, participants were given the opportunity to assemble brand new stuffed animals and super hero capes for sick children. The individuals received the materials needed to complete both tasks which included a teddy bear t-shirt & super hero cape shapes to personalize with their own hand drawn “Messages of Encouragement”.
Children's Hospital Los Angeles is an institution that provides pediatric health care and helps patients more than 528,000 times each year in a setting designed just for their needs. Their history began in 1901 in a small house on the corner of Alpine and Castelar Streets (now Hill St. in Chinatown) and today their medical experts offer more than 350 pediatric specialty programs and services to meet the needs of each child that walks into their doors. As the first and largest pediatric hospital in Southern California, CHLA relies on the generosity of philanthropists in the community to support compassionate patient care, leading-edge education of the caregivers of tomorrow and innovative research efforts that impact children at the hospital and around the world.
Camilla Quinn Allen, a representative at LA Children’s Hospital attended the event in person to thank all of the Blue Shield attendees who dropped in and gave back! She graciously interacted with the groups and explained how meaningful the donation of stuffed animals and capes would be as they make an enormous impact in the lives of sick children enduring short and long term stays. Following the event, Audrey Cyr, Director of Corporate Partnerships at the Hospital spoke about the children being impacted and added that, “Gifts like these will bring hours of fun and smiles to their faces and the families are so grateful.”