Helping Children with Cancer
Gill Center Community Support Options
Families are devastated when they find that their child has cancer. Children’s Health℠ provides treatment with assistance from a diverse team of medical professionals. However, the community provides support in many other ways. This information provided by the Pauline Allen Gill Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders at Children’s Health offers guidance on ways to benefit these families during a difficult time.
Children’s Health diagnoses and treats children from birth to age 18 for cancer. These patients are not only diverse in their ages, but in the types of cancer, treatment, prognosis, culture, spiritual beliefs and home life.
If you know someone personally coping with childhood cancer, the best way to find out what they need is to ask. Many times running errands, picking up the mail, cooking meals, mowing the lawn, doing the laundry or simply being available to listen helps so much.
Many patients receive gifts from their own family and friends. Some families choose to bring gifts to the hospital for the entire unit or to benefit other children, as well. For infection control reasons, some items cannot be accepted as gifts. Therefore, please contact Children’s Health prior to coordinating your donation.
Prize Closet Donations
The Gill Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders outpatient unit has more than 100 patients visit between the Dallas and Plano campuses for clinic appointments each weekday. Many of these patients undergo invasive procedures such as spinal taps, bone marrow aspirates and blood draws. After completing a procedure, patients choose an item from the Gill Center prize closet. These prizes serve as important distraction and comfort items for children during their treatments.
Prize closet suggestions:
All items must be new to prevent infection.
- Mini Potato Heads
- Dinosaurs/bugs
- Mini Lego kits
- Bubbles (small or ‘bubble tumblers’)
- Matchbox/ Hot Wheels cars
- Small costume jewelry
- Army and parachute men
- Toddler-age board books
- Individual small art sets
- Mini make-up kits/mini nail polish
- Plastic animals
- Disney or cartoon-theme items
- Stickers (Disney characters, animals, scrapbook themes)
- Journals, themed spiral notebooks
- Gel pens (colored)
- Draw-string backpacks
- Child-friendly tattoos
- Puzzles (24-100 count)
- Paint-by-number activity
- Velvet marker coloring
- Sun-catcher painting kits
- Teen bracelet kits
- Building & painting crafts
- Whoopee cushions
If you would like to make a prize closet donation, please contact:
Gill Center Outreach Manager
214-456-2805
GillCenter@childrens.com
Craft Projects
Monetary Gifts
As a private, not-for-profit academic medical center, Children’s Health relies on the generosity of our community to support its mission to make life better for children.
Please contact Children’s Medical Center Foundation
Volunteering
Visit Volunteer Services to learn more about volunteering at Children's Health.
Blood Donations
Cancer patients receive many different types of blood products during treatment. Children’s Health receives these products by life-saving donations made through Carter BloodCare, the community not-for-profit blood center in North Central and East Texas.
Contact Carter BloodCare for more information about:
- Donor eligibility
- Blood drives for a specific patient
- Different types of donations