News For Parents

In the giving spirit of the holiday season, we want to help others in need.  There is a bin by the check-in desk for non-perishable food items that will be delivered to the Northern Illinois Food Bank. 

Donations will be taken through December 20, 2011.  Please help us feed families in need in our community.

Thank you and have a wonderful holiday season!

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Easter Contest

We have a winner for the Easter Contest.  This time 3 sisters win the prize.                                     Congratulations to Annahlise, Aubrey, and Natahly! 

The final Jelly bean count was 429 and the girls had to closest guess of 425.

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St. Patrick’s Day Contest

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Door Decorating at New Beginnings Pediatrics

Patients, Staff Share Spirit of Christmas at New Beginnings Pediatrics

Going to the pediatrician is about more than having a check-up this Christmas season at New Beginnings Pediatrics in Geneva. Along with their immunizations or prescriptions, the children and their families are getting a big dose of the Christmas spirit!

The holiday season flies by at a hectic pace and, starting last Christmas, the nurses and doctors at New Beginnings decided it would be fun to celebrate with a Christmas contest that would involve the children and last through December for all to enjoy. And so the decorating began.

Just after Thanksgiving, each person who works at the office—doctors, nurses, front desk staff—signed up to decorate an exam room door for Christmas. Through the month of December, each child and sibling who passed through the office took a careful look at each door and voted for his or her favorite. At month’s end, the person whose door received the most votes won a cash prize.

The real treat, however, was experiencing the joy on the children’s faces as they toured the office to pick their favorite door. (It took the edge off the pain of getting shots or being sick!) Last year the themes varied from the Nutcracker, to walking into a gingerbread house, to the Cubs. On one door children wrote on an ornament what they wished for the most, and hung it on a lighted Christmas tree! The kids loved participating and so, even while we were at work, Christmas lasted a full month.

This year people started asking about the doors well before Christmas. We knew we would repeat the project, but we wanted to take the joy to a higher level this time around. We didn’t have to look far to find a way: right in our own backyard is a charity that truly embodies the spirit of Christmas. Cal’s All-Star Angel Foundation is an incredible pediatric cancer charity started in 2007 by a South Elgin family in honor of their son, Cal Sutter, who lost his battle with leukemia at the age of 13.

While the office is very pleased to be able to make a monetary donation to such a worthy cause (half the contest jackpot will donated by the winner,) even more gratifying is the chance to spread the word about Cal’s Angels to so many families in our corner of the community. Everyone who walks through has been thankful to learn about Cal’s Angels, whose mission is “granting wishes and providing financial assistance to kids fighting cancer and their families.”

And they do an amazing job with this mission: 95 cents of every dollar donated goes directly to the cause. More than 100 local pediatric cancer patients have had their wishes granted by Cal’s Angels, including family outings to Great America; trips to Cubs and Bears games; laptops to stay connected with school and friends during long hospital stays. In addition, Cal’s Angels has supplied Children’s Memorial Hospital and Ronald McDonald House with over 1000 Wii, XBOX 360 and other games, and helped struggling families with “countless” mortgage, utility, grocery and medical bills.

At New Beginnings, the doors are decked out—lights, bells and whistles-- and the voting is underway. The children drop their votes into a gold box adorned with an angel. All but the youngest understand that they are participating in something special, that they are helping other children less fortunate than themselves. Our hope is that they and their families will talk about Cal’s Angels with their friends and loved ones after they leave, spreading the good will of Cal and his family far and wide.  

Throughout the horrible ordeal that is pediatric cancer, Cal was always more concerned about other children’s well being than his own. Now his parents have brought his dream to life in our community. As children’s health professionals, we cannot imagine a more amazing legacy for someone whose time here on earth was so brief.  

To learn more about Cal’s All-Star Angels, please visit www.calsangels.org