Aloha Friends,
First, thank you so much for all the support you have given me to help me on my journey to visit the hospitals. But as you can imagine, plans have drastically changed due to the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) situation and I wanted to let you know that while we might be down, we’re not out!
I was all prepared to leave on my mission to embark on a national tour with a goal to visit 100+ hospitals through 2020 until COVID-19 hit. At the beginning of March 2020, I was notified by Make’m Smile Hawaii’s Seymour Kazimirski, that all my hospital visits were postponed.
Here in Hawaii, hospitals such as Shriners Children’s Hospital Honolulu, Kapiolani Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Kaiser Hospitals, and other clinics were frequent stops for myself and my Healing Dinosaurs, until COVID-19 shut it all down, but now… what to do. The only thing that makes the world go ‘round for me is visiting kids at the hospitals and trying to cheer them up. So, to continue spreading the Aloha spirit, I came up with a solution.
TADA!! With the help By utilizing Skype, “WHYit,” one of my Healing Dinosaur puppets, and I, will be wheeled into every room via laptop or tablet by a volunteer at the hospital. As you know, Skype is a two-way visual communications app much like FaceTime or Google Video, where you can see the other person while responding, allowing us to interact and have fun from anywhere in the world.
We will also be able to create custom video cameos for children at the hospitals (sample below). These are recorded custom shout-out-style videos, approximately 3-minutes in length, that are made specifically for one child. The video cameos will get sent directly to hospitals where the child is located, and then will be forwarded to the parents of the child.
As for my plans for the physical tour across the nation, this wil be on hold for the time being. But be sure that when COVID-19 is over, we will be ready to visit and cheer up as many children as possible.
Thank you once again for your continued support and be sure to check in on my social media channels for updates of our virtual visits tour!
MAHALO NUI LOA!
