Project Good Days
Helping Seriously/Chronically Ill Youth Have a Good Day
Who We Are
Project Good Days is a Washington University in St. Louis campus organization, now associated with Wash. U.'s Campus Y, that provides support for youth with chronic and/or serious illness. The group is named Project Good Days because we've found that telling someone who is seriously or chronically ill to "get well soon" is a bit ridiculous, but telling them that you "hope today is a good day" is helpful.
Our Mission
- Heighten awareness of issues faced by individuals with chronic health conditions.
- Provide tools to help youth and students with chronic health conditions make each day a better day.
- Reach out to youth and students with chronic health conditions to help them recognize and cope with potential problems they may face with respect to their health.
What We Do
Info for WU Students
In order to help WU students with chronic/serious illness, we have created an pamphlet with tips and tricks about how to manage their illness and their life at school: Your Guide to Living with Serious/Chronic Illness at Washington University. The pamphlet is also available in paper form at Student Health Services on the South 40 as well as various other locations on campus.
NEW: The pamphlet is also available in electronic form on the Student Health Services website. We will be printing a new edition of the pamphlet in Spring 2008.
Care Packages for Teens at SLCH
In order to help youth off-campus, we make care packages for teens at St. Louis Children's Hospital. Each fun, colorful package contains tips and tricks on how to deal with growing up with illness as well as fun distractions. The group has made and delivered over 100 packages to date and you can view pictures of them here.
Here's what's in our packages*:
- An intro letter explaining the package
- What I Wish They Had Told Me When I First Got Sick**
- Tips and Tricks**
- Inspirational quotes
- A few choice Top Ten lists from Connect - a site for youth with serious illnesses that one of cofounders helped run
- A few choice advice columns from Connect
- Fun stuff, including things like: a deck of cards, a crazy straw, bubbles, notebook, fuzzy pom-poms, a stress ball, and a t-shirt and fabric pen (The items vary, but we like to have several fun objects in each package.)
* Rules for the packages: nothing religious and no food products.
** Text only; for the packages, we make sure to display the tips and such on colorful cards, so if teens want, they can post the tips on their wall.
Family Dinner Program at Ronald McDonald House
Starting in Spring 2008, we will be volunteering at the Family Dinner Program at Ronald McDonald House.
St. Louis’ three Ronald McDonald Houses serve as a “home-away-from-home” for families with seriously ill children being treated at area hospitals, and provides support to organizations that serve the needs of children. -- rmhcstl.com, the website for St. Louis's Ronald McDonald Houses.
For the Family Dinner program, we will be going to the West Pine house near Children's and make a meal (breakfast or dinner) for the patients and families living there. Approximately eight volunteers are needed for each event below.
Dates:
- Sunday, February 17, 2008, Breakfast
- Saturday, March 1, 2008, Dinner
- Saturday,April 19, 2008, Breakfast
How You Can Help
Join Us
If you'd like to join Project Good Days, we meet once a week on Tuesdays, 7:00-8:00pm on the South 40, and we'd be glad to have you any week that you're free. If you are unable to make the meetings, but would still like to go to a Family Dinner event, please let us know. We will be expanding the focus of the info pamphlet as well as making care packages at the meetings. We also plan to have other activities throughout the year. If you have further questions, email Kate or Kristen.
One-Time Service Event for WU Groups
If you are a leader of a group that is looking for a service project, the care packages project is now available to other student groups on campus as a one-time service project. We still make the packages ourselves regularly, but we offer the project (including materials) to other groups. If you or your group is interested, please contact wustlpgd@gmail.com.
Postcards
We are currently starting a postcard campaign: we would like to be able to put postcards from around the world in each of the care packages. Such cards would serve two purposes: showing the teens that people from around the world care and serving as a relaxation device. Each card would be an object to focus on for a daydream vacation away from the hospital. Unfortunately, no responses from the postcards would be available, since we must protect patient confidentiality.
Feel free to take a look at some of the postcards we've received so far: overview, close up #1, close up #2, close up #3. Thank you very much to everyone who has sent in postcards. Keep it up!
If you would like to send a stamped postcard with a short message (such as "Wishing you a good day from [location]!"), please do so to the following address:
Project Good Days
c/o Washington University in St. Louis
Campus YMCA
One Brookings Drive
St. Louis, MO 63130
USA
Please make sure the card is appropriate for young teens, is not of the form "get well soon"/"wishing you good health," and contains no religious or political content. Inappropriate materials will be discarded. Thank you.