A Sense of Control
Our foundation was conceived on the belif that no child wants to be in the hospital but if they have to be then why not make them feel like home as much as possible !When you are in a battle with a life threatening disease like cancer, families soon realize the lose control of their lives. At Adopt A Room we want to give the children back some control ! We cant control the illness or the outcome but we can control the environment !
An Idea Comes To Life
Then in the fall of 2004, David Millington approached Schepperle at a golf club where they are both members, knowing that Schepperle, too, had lost a child to disease. Millington’s daughter Madison Claire died at age 2 of spinal muscular atrophy, a degenerative disease that attacks nerve cells in the spinal cord. Soon after they started talking, Schepperle shared his ideas for creating family-friendly children’s hospital rooms: colorful, customizable,and bigger—with more space for parents and other family members.
Millington was instantly engaged. His family was all too familiar with the cold, sterile feeling of a typical children’s hospital room: Dana Millington, Madison’s mother, once had spent 63 consecutive days in the hospital with their daughter.
Then the two dads raised money through events and asked companies to donate equipment and other resources to help create two prototypes of their Adopt A Rooms—named to inspire other donors to sponsor additional rooms—at the University of Minnesota Children’s Hospital, Fairview.
Founders - Brian Schepperle
David Millington
Just days after the two dads met, Millington shared Schepperle’s idea with his neighbor, Chuck Knight, who worked for the architectural design firm Perkins + Will. Knight told Millington, “You can’t just do a room—you have to doa whole floor.” From there, the idea quickly started turning into a reality. Millington and Schepperle asked a group of seriously ill children what they'd want in an ideal room. Among their wishes: better beds, video games, and a way to see outside.
Turning frowns upside down since 2006
The University of Minnesota Children's Hospital is truly unique in how it delivers care to kids, including building private, customized rooms that help kids heal by using research, input from families and smart room technology.
All week, the WCCO Morning Show is featuring the hospital, and on Thursday Jamie Yuccas and Jason DeRusha went inside to see how fundraising dollars help make "Adopt-A-Rooms" possible.
No one likes being in the hospital. That's why making the stays for the smallest of patients now include big rooms at the University of Minnesota Children's Hospital.
Adopt-A-Rooms are 35 percent bigger than the typical hospital room and come totally tricked out. Dr. John Wagner, director of the Blood Marrow Transplant Program, pointed out light controls that allow patients to make things as bright and colorful or as dark as they want. They can even have stars on the ceiling.
There are also games that can be played with their family or others in the hospital. Perhaps because the rooms were developed by two dads, there are giant TV sets on the wall and on the bed.
"It's not only a way of providing entertainment, but also it can help the children connect to their homes and their schools, to keep in touch with their friends back at home," Wagner said. "There's also a get-well channel that's part of this. It can give you biofeedback. ... This is another strategy to ease the anxiety and pain these kids go through. If it's not working, it automatically calls the nurse."
Pictures of their caretakers are also displayed, making treatment less scary and helping kids feel normal while their world gets flipped upside down.The average patient is in the hospital for 46 days and can come back two or three times for treatment.