On Wednesday, May 26th, 2021, HLF Young Ambassadors and Alumni attended a virtual Service Learning event with the New York Presbyterian Children’s Hospital (NYP), an original HLF partner. During the event, Young Ambassadors and Alumni heard from a variety of NYP employees about their jobs, how they work together to do their meaningful work, and work with Child Life. Guests also learned about how NYP works with foundations such as HLF to coordinate events that support Child Life’s mission and spread happiness through NYP.

Child Life is a department within NYP that focuses on helping patients and their families through the experience of hospitalization. To be more specific, a lot of Child Life’s work deals with providing crucial joy and entertainment through fun, stress-relieving opportunities. Child Life is a critical team at NYP since they provide the necessary support to each family in the capacity they need since long or short-term hospitalization takes a toll on more than just the patient. To support Child Life, Young Ambassadors participated in an NYP Child Life Wish List Challenge by collecting donations for Child Life’s toy and game wishlist. All of the toys and games collected went directly to Child Life to support their mission of spreading joy at NYP. (To shop the Wishlist click HERE).

Young Ambassadors and Alumni looking to pursue a career in the medical field were provided with a great opportunity to ask questions they may have had about career prospects directly from current medical professionals. Some of the staff from NYP were also able to provide insight into balancing collegiate level athletics and preparation for the medical field to student-athlete Young Ambassadors.

At the end of the meeting, guests were surprised by a visit from Henrik Lundqvist and were able to discuss and ask questions about the impact that their work has had on them with Henrik. Overall, it was a great event for Young Ambassadors and Alumni who are very grateful to the New York Presbyterian Children’s Hospital for this fantastic and valuable learning opportunity.

Written by Julia Huth