New Beginnings
Landry, a Boston Children's patient
SPIRIT OF GIVING WINTER 2024
EDITOR
Lisa Fratt
CONTRIBUTORS
Betsy Arenella
Brittany Bulens
Kevin Ferguson
Jana Fitzgerald-Rhodes
Sara Goodman
Mary Ann Guillette
Genevieve Rajewski
Lauren Seidman
DESIGN
Patrick Mitchell/MO.D
COVER PHOTO
Beth Ann Fricker
E facebook.com/bostonchildrenshospital
D twitter.com/helpkids
M youtube.com/childrenshospitalbos
C linkedin.com/company/ bostonchildrenshospital
Q instagram.com/bostonchildrens
0 story.snapchat.com/@bostonchildrens
Boston Children’s Hospital Magazine is published by the Boston Children’s Hospital Trust. ©Boston Children’s Hospital 2024. All rights reserved. To opt out of receiving Boston Children’s Hospital Magazine, contact publications@chtrust.org.
New Beginnings
I’m delighted to welcome you to the inaugural issue of Boston Children’s Hospital Magazine. In truth, our ‘new’ magazine is an enhanced and expanded continuation of the Trust’s flagship magazine—Spirit of Giving.
Through the years, Spirit of Giving offered a tangible celebration of all that philanthropy makes possible. A way to connect with the families and children you support. A forum for learning about groundbreaking science. A space for meeting unstoppable researchers and caregivers.
When we re-imagined the publication as Boston Children’s Hospital Magazine, we wanted to honor and elevate everything Spirit of Giving represents. You’ll find deeper stories, striking photographs and details that show how your partnership impacts children and families around the world. It is, we hope, a wonderful new beginning.
And the pages are packed with new beginnings. You’ll learn about our Crisis to Wellness campaign, which represents an important re-set for children’s mental health. You’ll meet families whose lives are starting anew, thanks in part to lifesaving care provided at Boston Children’s. You’ll read about pioneering researchers, striving to transform discoveries into life-changing therapies.
If you’d like to provide feedback, share an idea or tell us about your new beginning, please connect with us at publications@chtrust.org.
As always, thank you for your generosity, your good thoughts and your passionate interest in our work.
WARMEST REGARDS,
Kevin B. Churchwell, MD President and CEO
It Starts Here.
A child needs help. Parents need hope.
Families are our guiding stars. In the pages that follow, meet a few, and discover what you make possible.
Biologics
Pioneers Deliver on the Promise of Nature’s Medicine Chest
Microscopic image shows a mouse cochlea treated with a viral vector developed by Dr. Jeffrey Holt (right).
DR. JUDY LIEBERMAN
There’s a revolution underway in medicine.
Scientists are turning to nature and engineering new treatments—biologics—to mimic the intricacies of life itself.
But what are they, exactly?
Unlike conventional chemically synthesized medicines, biologics are derived directly from natural molecules and offer precise disease targeting and a potentially lower risk of unforeseen side effects.
While big pharmaceutical companies excel in later-stage clinical and manufacturing development, biologics require the dedication and tenacity during early discovery found in academic labs, a sweet spot for Boston Children’s. “It’s a unique strength for us,” says Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer Nancy Andrews, MD, PhD, “as these innovations can evolve from our laboratories to clinical practice and, eventually, to commercializa-
tion.”
Meet three scientists harnessing the building blocks of biology to unlock groundbreaking interventions.
Revolutionizing Treatments for Genetic Hearing Loss
For the millions of patients affected by hearing loss and deafness, the only available treatments are devices like hearing aids or cochlear implants. While these interventions can be beneficial, they don’t work in every case and fall short of replicating natural hearing.
Jeffrey Holt, PhD, and his team have explored multiple gene therapy approaches and demonstrated they can restore hearing in mouse models of three forms of human genetic hearing loss. What sets their efforts apart is the seamless interaction between laboratory research and clinical practice. They’re engineering mice with genetic mutations similar to humans and generating patient-derived stem cells to grow inner ear tissue, an approach that offers valuable tools for controlled testing and validating potential treatments. Thanks to essential support from donors like Jeffrey Barber and Kimberly Hsu-Barber, Dr. Holt’s work could transform the landscape of genetic hearing
loss therapies, offering new possibilities for patients to experience a world filled with sound.
“Knocking Down” Disease through RNA Interference
Imagine genes as instruction manuals that contain directions for making essential proteins for the body’s many functions. RNA interference (RNAi), a natural process cells use to regulate the activity of genes, utilizes small pieces of RNA to interfere with the gene’s instructions, knocking down protein production.
Judy Lieberman, MD, PhD, was the first to demonstrate that RNAi could be harnessed in animal models to target specific genes involved in medical conditions. First, she showed RNAi could save mice from a fatal form of hepatitis and later successfully blocked HIV transmission in mouse models. This critical work paved the way for RNAi drug development to treat everything from rare genetic diseases to common conditions like high cholesterol.
Now, Dr. Lieberman is aiming to advance the commercialization of RNAibased therapies for cancer. She developed strategies to target cancer cells by knocking down genes essential for cell division and manipulating genes involved in the immune response to control and potentially eliminate the tumor. A major benefit of this approach is the ability to create cocktails of small RNAs targeting multiple genes, addressing resistance issues common in single-drug treatments. Dr. Lieberman’s research shows the immense potential of biologics, opening doors to a new era of targeted therapies.
Building a Better Vaccine
Richard Malley, MD, has been on a mission throughout his career to develop more effective and less expensive vaccines against diseases that claim the lives of millions of children around the world. Modern vaccine production is extensively intricate, costly and complex. Dr. Malley and his Boston Children’s colleagues, Yingjie Lu, PhD, and Fan Zhang, PhD, created a highly efficient vaccine technology platform, Multiple Antigen Presenting System (or MAPS), to target a broad range of infectious diseases. (See image below to learn how MAPS works.)
With early support from critical funders, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, they formed a biotech company, Affinivax, which applied MAPS technology to bring new vaccines to market. In one of Boston Children’s most successful intellectual property deals, Affinivax was recently acquired by GSK. As GSK advances clinical trials for pneumococcal vaccines and other diseases, Dr. Malley’s group is currently working on applying their platform to more pathogens, including Salmonella, Shigella, Group B streptococcus and tuberculosis. They are collaborating closely with GSK to expedite the development of additional vaccines, amplifying the global impact of this work.
Picture a pathogen, like the pneumococcus bacterium, as a peanut M&M. The candy shell protects the virus from the body’s defenses. The MAPS technology acts like a molecular glue, binding the surface sugars (the shell) with pathogenrelated proteins. This precise and virtually irreversible binding ensures the immune system can efficiently recognize and respond to the pathogen, leading to a robust immune response.
DR. RICHARD MALLEY
A NEW BEGINNING FOR CHILDREN’S MENTAL HEALTH
It has become frighteningly clear that kids aren’t alright.
Recent data shows U.S. life expectancy for children is declining for the first time in 40 years. One major reason? The nation’s longstanding neglect of mental health.
“All the gains we’ve made through advances in treating other diseases, like cancer or congenital heart defects, have been erased, in part due to the massive death toll of suicide,” explains Psychiatrist-in-Chief Stacy Drury, MD, PhD. “On average, 12 children take their lives every day.”
With a 10-year lag between when a child first exhibits symptoms and when they see their first mental health professional, we need to reach young people much earlier to reverse this troubling trend. Collaboration with families, communities and schools and across clinical and non-clinical settings where children spend time is essential. To ensure mental wellness is the central pillar of child health, Boston Children’s and Franciscan Children’s have united to create a hub that will serve as a national model.
“Picture a stereotypical psychiatric institution—this campus will be the exact opposite,” says Boston Children’s
Leaders in our mental health campaign (from left) Richard Mayo, Dr. Stacy Drury, Dr. Kevin B. Churchwell, Dr. Joe Mitchell, Joel Cutler
President and CEO Dr. Kevin B. Churchwell. “It will be a welcoming space designed to support community and family learning—and serve as the cornerstone of our campaign to grow awareness about healthy brain development and erase stigma about mental health disorders.”
The hub of the new campus is a cutting-edge, carbon-neutral building that will house everything from prevention programs to crisis care.
As expertise and resources are developed, they’ll be shared across the United States. Philanthropic partners already are making an impact, enabling us to launch critical programs now, while creating the infrastructure that will
serve as the linchpin of our work to benefit children everywhere.
“We must act to redefine our future,” says Richard Mayo, one of the leaders supporting our Crisis to Wellness campaign to radically rethink how we provide mental health care and advance prevention. “Success requires additional partners to deliver this campus and fuel the workforce development, research and community programs that will provide families with better answers.”
The future depends on it. “We are at risk of losing a generation of kids if we don’t act now,” says Franciscan Children’s President Joe Mitchell, MD.
Hope Is on the Horizon
TODAY’S EXPERIENCE …
Children with mild to moderate mental health challenges escalate to a crisis after waiting months or longer for therapy.
Families feel isolated and stigmatized upon entering aging, cramped psychiatric wards—most of them repurposed medical units that may not function as mentally therapeutic or age-appropriate environments.
Children with autism and intellectual disabilities languish in non-psychiatric, non-therapeutic units, their symptoms or behaviors often worsening as they wait for scarce care.
… AND TOMORROW’S
Kids have more mental wellness supports at home, in their communities and through our clinics. Our campus hosts parent and teen mentor programs, learning circles for educators, and day programs and intensive services that fill gaps in care.
Families feel secure in healing spaces that support healthy brain development and foster positive behaviors. Children from all backgrounds see themselves on art-filled walls. Ample gardens and dining areas invite all ages to comfortably visit and rest.
Children have improved access to a wider continuum of care that is seamlessly integrated, so a higher level of care is accessible when needed. Children stay safe while maintaining routines, such as sleeping in their homes.
BOLDLY GOING BEYOND BEDS
The campus will help remake the mental health care system by providing the physical infrastructure for critical activities. It will:
→ serve as the premiere training ground for the behavioral health workforce of the future, including psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, nurses, behavioral health specialists and others.
→ accelerate evidence-based approaches to treatment and prevention, while growing the research program to engage and benefit families from all backgrounds.
→ act as a resource hub for the community, providing families and childservice professionals with the tools to support mental wellness and the skills to identify at-risk children early.
Unconditional
Like each new life, the Every Child Fund brings a world of possibilities. Gifts to the fund fuel any and all aspects of Boston Children’s mission: providing answers for children and families everywhere.
The 55,000 Every Child Fund donors save lives by igniting groundbreaking research, driving state-of-the-art care, fighting pediatric health crises around the world and supporting patient families.
*Adj. without limits.
Making History—While Still in the Womb
Something was terribly wrong with Kenyatta’s and Derek’s unborn child.
She had a vein of Galen malformation (VOGM)—a deadly blood vessel abnormality—in her brain. By the time an infant with VOGM is born, life-threatening complications have set in.
Fortunately, a Boston Children’s clinical trial of in utero VOGM intervention was seeking its first patient. One incredibly delicate procedure and two days later, baby Denver was born. Soon after, the family returned to their Louisiana home, where Denver is thriving—thanks to the kind of lifesaving research the Every Child Fund supports.
Who Does That? A Real Commitment to Our Mission
Some people like to fly under the radar during their employer’s charitable giving drives. Not Tim Hogan.
After arriving at Boston Children’s in 2015, Hogan, senior vice president of compliance, shocked fundraisers. He called and asked if he’d been overlooked as an annual giving donor.
“I want to help patient families and front-line caregivers,” he says. “Giving to the Every Child Fund makes the biggest impact.”
In addition to his annual giving, Hogan “walks the talk,” donning sneakers to participate in the Eversource Walk for Boston Children’s Hospital—which also supports the Every Child Fund.
Unlimited Flexibility
UNRESTRICTED SUPPORT HELPS COMBAT CHILD HEALTH CRISES LOCALLY AND GLOBALLY
TO UKRAINE WITH LOVE: KEEPING PREEMIES WARM WITHOUT ELECTRICITY
Because electricity is spotty in parts of war-torn Ukraine, the incubators that premature babies need to maintain a healthy body temperature are unreliable.
Enter Boston Children’s. In October 2023, the hospital shipped 100 DreamWarmers to the beleaguered country.
Anne Hansen, MD, MPH, invented the lowtech solution for premature infants in sub-Saharan Africa. No electricity? No problem. Boiling water melts wax inside a plastic mattress, which then stays at a perfect 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
The Every Child Fund supports innovations like this one, which literally wraps fragile young newborns in lifesaving warmth and care.
EASING TROUBLED MINDS
As the mental health epidemic rages on, kids in crisis can end up “boarding” in the emergency room for weeks, waiting for a higher level of care.
The Every Child Fund supports healing activities, including music therapy, art projects and yoga for these children. “These interventions reduce stress, encourage emotional expression and help children engage with peers going through similar struggles,” says Beth Donegan, director of child life services.
SMALL ITEM, BIG IMPACT
They’re not much to look at—flat plastic rectangles— but for many families, they’re the difference between survival and despair. Made possible in part through the Every Child Fund, gift cards translate into gas to travel to the hospital, groceries to feed children at home or other items families need as they navigate a child’s illness.
Opening Their Hearts to Children in Need: The Lacaillade Family
Peter Lacaillade and his wife Marjorie live close to Boston Children’s—but their children Rose and Reed haven’t needed significant care here. However, when the wife of a work colleague invited him to join the hospital’s Philanthropic Board of Advisors, Lacaillade jumped at the chance.
“There’s no better cause than pediatric health,” he says, “and Boston Children’s does it best.” His strong belief in the hospital’s leadership led his family to make an extraordinary Every Child Fund commitment. The gift will match—dollar for dollar—every gift made during an upcoming fundraising campaign.
Care Fit for a Prince
When Prince was born in in Kenya, part of his brain was emerging from his forehead—a condition known as an encephalocele. Despairing parents Peter and Eunice couldn’t find answers locally, so they searched online and connected with Boston Children’s.
Once the family made the long trip to Boston, the Every Child Fund supported Prince’s care: a successful surgery, follow-up treatments and medications. Peter and Eunice benefited as well through social workers to coordinate care and services, meal vouchers to stay nourished and even Red Sox tickets for distraction and lifelong memories. Today, Prince is happy and healthy—and the only sign of his encephalocele is a scar on his hairline.
A Bundle of Care
Your eyes are gritty; your hair is a mess; and your mouth tastes sour. It’s been five hours since you rushed your child to Boston Children’s in the middle of the night, with no time to bring anything.
But then a care team member hands you a backpack filled with shampoo, conditioner, a toothbrush and more.
You exhale. Taking a few precious minutes of parental self-care—an Every Child Fund priority—means you can focus on your child’s recovery.
A Formula to Understand Brain Development
THE SCIENTIFIC QUESTION
What is the relationship between early brain development and neurodevelopmental disorders, mental health issues and other conditions?
THE PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
Dong Kong, PhD, Division of Endocrinology and F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center
THE FUNDING
Youbin Leng, CEO of infant formula producer China Feihe, envisions a future where children are unencumbered by health issues that arise during early brain development. It’s a vision shared by his friend Dr. Kong. In September 2023, the Feihe Pediatric Brain Development Research Initiative at Boston Children’s Hospital, a Harvard Medical School Teaching Hospital, was established to help advance this lofty goal.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
Several factors, from environmental exposures and nutrition to genetics and immunology, affect a baby’s healthy brain development—and may determine if a child will later experience neurodevelopmental or mental health disorders. By gaining a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that drive irregular brain development, scientists can find ways to treat, cure and prevent debilitating conditions.
WHAT IT SUPPORTS
Led by Dr. Kong, the initiative will launch a competitive grant program to provide seed funding for promising brain development research projects. It also will establish educational platforms to promote collaboration among investigators. “Boston Children’s researchers are racing to discover ways to safeguard the developing brain, promote the health of the growing mind and treat— or prevent—neurodevelopmental and other damaging conditions,” says Dr. Kong. “Thanks to the wonderful generosity of China Feihe and Youbin Leng, this initiative will help us find answers that benefit children now and for decades to come.”
Celebrating a Legend
The Boston Children’s community and disability advocates worldwide were saddened when Rick Hoyt passed away in 2023. But thanks to a generous endowment from the Hoyt Foundation, his vision of a society where individuals with disabilities are empowered and respected will carry on. Rick was born with cerebral palsy, which prevented him from walking and talking. Care from Boston Children’s experts enabled Rick to develop his voice and follow his dreams. The Augmentative Communication Program was pivotal to enriching Rick’s relationships and sense of purpose. “It was a piece to the puzzle that allowed Rick to achieve all he did,” says Hoyt Foundation President Russ Hoyt. Guided communication techniques and support from program leaders Howard Shane, PhD, and John Costello, MA, opened doors for Rick. He broke boundaries, receiving a public education and later becoming the first major university graduate who was nonspeaking and quadriplegic.
Inspired by all that Rick achieved, the Rick Hoyt Endowment funds a robust, readily available supply of communication systems, tools and strategies for personalized solutions that will help others find their voices.
Raising the Bar for Sports Equality
What impact does gender-affirming care have on young transgender athletes’ sports performance? Despite a range of legislation banning transgender youth from competing in sports consistent with their gender identities, there hasn’t yet been a significant study exploring the effects of this care. Pioneering research, supported in part by NIKE, Inc. and led by Boston Children’s, is designed to answer key questions about physiologic and athletic changes resulting from genderaffirming care. The study will fill a critical gap and inform future sports policy decisions.
RICK HOYT AND HIS FATHER DICK
Dr. Wendy Chung: Rock Star, Advocate, Chief
Several patients of Wendy Chung, MD, PhD, have asked to take selfies with her. Although she’s not a celebrity, the world-renowned clinical and molecular geneticist has identified the genetic basis of more than 50 rare diseases. For families affected by these conditions, that makes Dr. Chung a rock star.
“It means a lot to families to know there’s a person behind the scenes who is on their side, working for them,” says Dr. Chung, who joined Boston Children’s as chief of pediatrics in July 2023. It’s an ideal time for Dr. Chung to step into her role.
“This is a transformative moment in history—scientific and medical advances are poised to change the future of children’s health. Boston Children’s is one of the only places that has the expertise to push this vision forward.”
Here, explains Dr. Chung, physicians and scientists deliver exceptional care, seek ways to improve that care and find cures. They disseminate their findings widely, empowering pediatricians around the world to treat kids with complex conditions and minimizing gaps in care for patients who don’t have access to specialists.
“The goal is to ensure that no child is left behind,” says Dr. Chung.
To that end, Boston Children’s new chief plans to expand her work as principal investigator on the GUARDIAN study (Genomic Uniform-screening Against Rare Diseases in All Newborns), which screens newborns for more than 250 genetic disorders not currently included in standard screening. Catching these conditions early can change the trajectory of a child’s life.
Another area of focus is precision medicine. Dr. Chung develops personalized therapies for children with genetic disorders and aids families in search of treatments. For Steve Baum, her guidance has been indispensable. “She provided practical and moral support to my family as we investigated therapeutic options tailored for my grandson. We’d be lost without her,” says Baum.
Grateful for Dr. Chung’s partnership, Baum made a gift to establish the Julian Grey Fund for Rare Disease Research at Boston Children’s. For Dr. Chung, her inspiration comes from all families affected by complex conditions—those she knows personally, and those far away, waiting for help.
Next on her ambitious agenda? Moving beyond diagnosis and treatment of genetic disorders to preventing these conditions.
The new chief is committed to broadening the reach of Boston Children’s expertise, especially in rare diseases.
A Neuroscientist’s Quest for TreatmentsFocused for Attention Deficits
Every minute of the day, we’re bombarded by distractors—sights, sounds, smells and other sensations— many of which our brains process subconsciously.
“Our brain filters out stimuli so we can effectively and efficiently focus on achieving our goals,” says Brielle Ferguson, PhD. “But with neurological, neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders, attention impairments occur frequently—and are difficult to treat.”
Current medications for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), for example, may not work in up to 1 in 3 patients. These medicines also can cause side effects, such as decreased appetite, difficulty sleeping, anxiety and depression, which Dr. Ferguson says may be because they affect more types of brain cells than is necessary.
Given how critical focus is to learning, children with untreated attention deficits must show up every day in the classroom and attempt to learn with tremendous difficulty—setting them up often for disappointment and even failure. And the ramifications of not effectively addressing attention challenges compound over a lifetime. For example, adults with attention issues are twice as likely to be jobless as their unaffected peers.
To shape therapies that target the specific cellular behavior responsible for attention deficits, Dr. Ferguson studies how the brain functions in health and disease. She has developed a mouse model to illuminate how cell types work individually and together in the prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain that guides our actions toward goals—and how they’re affected by brain chemicals.
In her studies of absence epilepsy, a seizure disorder accompanied by attention deficits, Dr. Ferguson found reduced activity of certain cell types in mice that failed an attention test. She then demonstrated that stimulating these brain cells with light helped the mice successfully pay attention to receive a food reward.
Now, Dr. Ferguson plans to build on her model to study other types of cells that may act as critical breaks on the flow of information in the brain for those with ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia.
Next, she hopes to work with other researchers to correlate her findings in mice with those from routine noninvasive imaging of human brains, starting with epilepsy patients.
An imaging signature that indicates activity by cells important to attention would give clinicians a new biomarker to evaluate patients’ response to treatment instead of relying on subjective observations about symptom improvement, she says.
By paying attention to what’s actually going on in each patient’s brain, clinicians could prescribe custom therapies—combining precisely focused medicines, instructional strategies and other supportive interventions—to ensure lifelong success.
How Do Proteins Trigger
Disease?
Judith Steen, PhD, is on a mission: to identify treatments for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and other diseases driven by pathological proteins. To accomplish her goal, she’s become one of the world’s leading experts on the proteins found in the human brain.
Proteins perform many of the body’s vital functions. In the brain, for example, they help cells communicate with each other and heal those that are damaged. Made from chains of amino acids that fold into specific 3D structures, proteins can only do their jobs when they’re folded correctly. Misfolded proteins can accumulate and clump together, triggering disease.
Dr. Steen develops novel tools to determine how, when and why proteins in the brain misfold, cluster and cause neurodegenerative conditions. These cutting-edge technologies include sophisticated computational programs that allow researchers to analyze proteins in minute detail, advanced tests to monitor the cellular processes that induce proteins to misfold and aggregate, and high-capacity drugdiscovery platforms to identify molecules that alter those destructive cellular processes.
Using these groundbreaking innovations, Dr. Steen discovered that tau—the protein found in tangles in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease—changes its form over time, and disease stage-specific drugs may be necessary to target it effectively. By determining the unique modifications of tau protein at different stages of illness, Dr. Steen can pinpoint molecular compounds that may stop Alzheimer’s disease from developing and also prevent people who already have Alzheimer’s disease from experiencing further decline. Now, she is poised to test these compounds—including some existing drug candidates—that halt negative changes in tau chemistry.
Can Science Turn Back Time?
AT THE AGE of 15 months, Rori was getting old before her time. She was even too tired to play. Why? Rori has a telomere biology disorder (TBD), a rare condition that causes children to age prematurely and fall prey to fatal diseases usually reserved for older adults, such as bone marrow failure and pulmonary fibrosis.
Telomeres, the genetic strands that cap every human chromosome like a shoelace tip, serve as the body’s biological clocks. Telomeres naturally shorten over time and, as they do, we age. But in children born with defective telomeres, like Rori, the aging process is accelerated.
Boston Children’s researcher
Suneet Agarwal, MD, PhD, believes he can slow down the biological clock and give children years of their lives back. Dr. Agarwal discovered thymidine, a chemical compound already in trial to treat another disease in children, appears to reverse the chromosomal damage associated with TBDs.
Thankfully, Dr. Agarwal doesn’t have to battle TBDs on his own. Last fall, he and his team were given a shot in the arm by the Boston Investment Conference (BIC). The annual conference attracts hundreds of business and financial leaders who gather to learn, network and advance discoveries at Boston Children’s and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Over 12 years, BIC has generated more than $25 million to accelerate promising research.
Support from BIC will enable Dr. Agarwal to launch the crucial human trials needed to turn his research into lifesaving therapies.
Step into Your Fundraising Era
Participants of all ages are welcome to walk, roll, stroll, mosey and meander—and celebrate helping kids! Join the Eversource Walk for Boston Children’s Hospital on Sunday, June 9, at the DCR Hatch Shell for a low-impact morning of creating high-impact results. Families from all walks of life will hit the streets so that childhood disease can hit the road. Save the date and check back in February to register at bostonchildrens.org/walk.
A Win for All
On Thursday, July 11, funseekers from businesses throughout Boston will head to Harvard Athletics Complex for the mission-critical Corporate Cup. Crowds will go wild as engineers, sales reps and email marketers compete for a common cause—fundraising for kids in the hospital. Last spring, Newmark Boston took home the metaphorical gold, but the real winners are the families who benefit from the participation of every team. Register your company at bostonchildrens.org/ corporatecup
EMPOWERED & FULFILLED: THIS COULD BE YOU
And all of your closest friends! The yoga community will come together again on Sunday, April 28, at the WIN Waste Field House at Gillette Stadium. Restore, revitalize and realign as top instructors lead participants at all levels in promoting care and healing—especially for kids in the hospital. And that’s just the tip of the yoga mat; Yoga Reaches Out supporters help bring lifesaving answers and inspiration to children around the world. Register today at bostonchildrens.org/yoga or scan the QR code.→
HEALTH! TOGETHERNESS! DISCOVERIES! WHAT ARE YOU FUELING IN 2024?
Join a Boston Children’s event and become part of a powerful force for change. You'll support lifechanging research and bring hope to families and kids everywhere. We look forward to welcoming you at our next celebration. Learn more at giving.childrenshospital.org/events.
The Bella of the Ball
Bella, who receives complex care at Boston Children’s, arrived with her mom for a special evening at the 14th annual Milagros para Niños fundraiser. The gala honors Latino patient families and the power of community. For her quinceañera—an important cultural tradition commemorating the 15th birthday—Bella was determined to show off her purple dress at Milagros. The event supports programs for Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking children worldwide and created lasting memories for Bella. To learn more, visit bostonchildrens.org/ milagros.
MILAGROS PARA NIÑOS
AVIANNA NEVER MISSED A BEAT— THANKS TO A CLINICAL TRIAL
She’s a toddler and a pioneer. While awaiting a heart transplant, Avianna became Boston Children’s first patient to test an innovation of the Berlin Heart—a 150-pound device that sustains blood flow but limits mobility and interaction. A clinical trial of a smaller, portable version offers families the freedom to nurture relationships and development. Today, with her transplant behind her, Avianna is talking and scribbling like every other toddler—and building on milestones she met thanks to the clinical trial.
