Sparky the fire safety dog gives a fist bump to Sam, a patient at MemorialCare Miller Children’s & Women’s Hospital. Sparky, along with volunteer firefighters from the Long Beach Fire Department and Santa Claus, went room-to-room making surprise bedside morning visits and distributed holiday gifts and cheer.
The Christmas crew went room-to-room delivering gift bags in tow inside a red wagon, bringing out smiles from both the patients and the parents.
The gift bags included t-shirts, plush animals and other goodies.
The distribution event was a collaboration between the Cherese Mari Laulhere Child Life Program at Miller Children’s & Women’s and the Long Beach Fire Department Kids Program.
In an interview with the Signal Tribune, LBFD Fire Captain Greg Curiel spoke about their involvement with MemorialCare, “Our program is made up of our firefighters that volunteer on their days off, and we come here to Miller Children’s Hospital and our mission statement is to bring smiles to the faces of the kids in our children’s hospital.”
Firefighters from fire stations throughout the city of Long Beach were present during the event.
“It feels good, we’re able to get back to our local community that we serve on a day to day basis,” Curiel said, “A lot of us grew up here in this community, a lot of us have either spent time here as patients or we’ve been the parents of our own children that have been patients here, so it feels really good to be able to give back because the Child Life department does a great job of taking care of these kids, so we’re just trying to assist them.”
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