Gratitools- for families of sick children

As the mother of a child with rare, incurable disease - gratitude has played a central role in finding joy and resiliency in dealing with really hard things. My children and I created grati-tools - a portable, colorful, engaing gratitude first-aid kit (in a bandaid box) - that helps remind use to be grateful with a deck of cards and some stickers we designed and published as a family. We have been giving them other families and providers and people love them. We want every family who has a child living with a pediatric illness to have tools for resiliency at their finger tips.



 



Gratitude practice promotes resiliency - and is developmentally appropriate for all ages. It was our response to the awful news of my daughter's illness. We still use then and give them out in the hospital, at the infusion center, etc. Our real goal is to give a grati-tool deck to every family facing a chronic life-limiting pediatric illness. We cannot do this alone. Our big beautiful wish is to have Oprah promote this as part of her gratitude work - and to start with a call to UCSF Benioff Children's hospital to distribute the decks to all of its families!!! Since we get our care there - and their patient helped make these- we think it a perfect place to launch. We have some good networks, and a non-profit sponsor, to get these out - we just cannot self finance this project.



 



Ideally we would tie this into my daughter's Make-A-Wish trip - we give grati-tools out to everyone who helps us in this journey- and we let them know that they can choose and learn to be grateful no matter what life has dealt.