Boston City TV, MA Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC), 11 Oct 2018

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From YouTube: Assistance from Anna - The Story of Anna's Pals

Description

It doesn't take a lot to make someone's day a little better. That's been the mantra of Anna's Pals, a non-profit organization that donates funds to childhood cancer research, as well as programs to improve the quality of life for hospitalized children and their families. In this story, we talk to the folks who created Anna's Pals, learn how it's connected with Boston Latin School and Boston Children's Hospital, and the impact it's making on pediactric care.

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No one likes to stay at the hospital, especially young children, but thanks to Anna's pals stays for families at Boston. Children's Hospital are made a little easier, so.

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Anna's pal tries to make the stay at Children's Hospital more comfortable for the kids and for the families, so they'll help with parking costs for families coming to visit. We.

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Bring pillows and sheets and blankets and toys and games and activities and other fun things for the kids to do while they're in the hospital it.

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Really helps support everyone through the process and try to make it go as well as it possibly can. Anna's.

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Pals is a nonprofit organization founded by the family and friends of Anna Jerome, a former student athlete at Boston Latin. She.

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Loved the school she loved everything it had to offer. She was on the swim team. She was on the track team. She excelled in academics, math being her favorite subjects. She just loved to everything. She.

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Is definitely very bubbly and always happy. You know she could always share anybody up, no matter what was going on, she was just she was the right person. She knew what to say to everybody at the right time. At.

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The young age of 14 Anna was diagnosed with AML an aggressive form of leukemia. After her diagnosis, she began treatments at Children's Hospital. She.

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Gave herself one day to cry about it and she just said right now: we're just gonna. Do this we're gonna do what they tell us, so we can get out of here. Friends.

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And family, all pitched in when Anna was being treated, including her Boston, Latin, school classmate and twin brother will, who was a football player for the Boston Latin Wolfpack her.

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Guidance counselor miss Wong, made sure that what was in all the same classes as Anna, so he would his coach would let him be late for practice. He leaves who run to children's was across the street, give her her homework and her assignments and bolt back to practice, but.

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While her kind spirit never wavered, the aggressive leukemia took its toll on October, 2nd 2014 Anna Jerome passed away at Boston, Children's Hospital. Obviously,.

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After that happens with someone, everybody wants to do something, and we were trying to put our heads together. Can we do right after she.

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Passed away, her best friend, Maggie came over with just an orange t-shirt. That said, Anna's pals on it and I was just kind of the beginning of it all we were just like. Oh, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna make a better situation out of what we were dealt. You.

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Know Anna's Palace just kind of came in it gave us all a focus so instead of wandering around aimlessly, it just gave us all some way to focus on something and and to be positive about the experience instead of you know, moping around about Anna put her name to good use and think positively of her and share with others how great she was along.

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With Anna's friends and family Boston, Latin School, pitched in to help develop their newly formed nonprofit organization, you.

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Know we just figured that this was the cause that we wanted to rally around. We've done some coaches versus cancer things we've raised money for a variety of nonprofits of variety causes, but this one's so close to home that we wanted to hitch our wagons to this one: girls, basketball, girls, volleyball boys and girls lacrosse, you name it that raised money for Anna's pals consistently throughout the year, well, whether it's gate receipts from a game or certain fundraisers that they run food sales during games. But.

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Perhaps the biggest assist to Anna's pals came from the Boston Latin football team who were a natural fit to help the newly found organization. My.

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First year will was team captain and one of the things I had said. The teams were to look for some community work and find a charity to be involved with, and that was just a natural fit. The.

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Partnership between Anna's pals and the Boston Latin football program has gone on to become a huge success. The football teams different drives and fundraisers have helped the nonprofit expand their reach of helping patients at Boston, Children's Hospital and the Wolfpack have learned life lessons that reach far beyond the high school football field. You're.

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The first year with will there we had maybe five six boxes, full of candy. So, like you know, we couldn't lift them up and then that later that year we did a video game Drive and we collected the games and then they went and they solo the game so Evie or whatever the name game spot whatever it is nowadays and they got a gift card. So then they could buy the game that they wanted to fit. The system for the kids that are stay at Children's.

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There's teenagers and children's, and they have you, know little kid game so unfortunately brought Call of Duty and those kinds of games for those kids, because people the kids wanted to play them and they didn't have them. So that was nice too. To have that it.

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Doesn't take a lot from you to really give to someone else and to make someone else's day a little bit better. You know and I hope they learned that as one of the lessons as we try to build their character and and build their sense of community in.

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Addition to making an impact in the lives of childrens hospital patients, Boston Latins football program's participation, also made an impact on one of their own I.

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Didn't realize how kind of much it meant to will and I think neither does mom until Danny Vee did an article on him and it is the first time I guess he really talked talked about it, and so, as you know, it meant a lot to his family to hear while we're really hearing his feelings- and it meant a lot to me and as the coaching staff to see that we could help facilitate this, for you will and they begin to have you come to terms as best you can with all this and have a positive outlet for dealing with your loss.

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Teammates and the football team really helped will cope with everything that happened and they were his teammates work. He couldn't be home with us. We were too hard for him to deal with, but it's his football teammates were really what kept him going and and gave him some focus now.

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Almost four years after Anna's pals conception, the nonprofit organization has continued to evolve, along with its steadfast support of the families at Boston Children's and his pals has their sights set on a new project that will impact the children they serve for years to come. Their.

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Long-Term goal is to raise enough money to perform this beach house to build construct from the ground up, basically an immune, safe speech offs for these kids with bad respiratory systems. Cancer. All those sort of things can't.

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Use a public bathroom because of the chemo whoops out your immune system, so you can't be around anything or anything: that's not specifically cleaned and designed for the safety of these kids. So Anna's pals would like to build a beach house for these kids, so they can have a place to go so these families can can regroup and revisit each other and really have some quality time together. So.

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You want to have a beach house that everyone can go to and there the families can spend quality time together and make some good memory really just be great for all the kids and for the community. I feel like everyone will just feel really bound together and it will. It will feel really great to put our name to good use, and not just like say: oh yeah, this, like my sister passed away, but be like no I. Have this. We have this whole organization that helps so many kids that were like her.