The RhodyTHON executive board met with Miracle Families from Hasbro Children’s Hospital to play some fun games this past weekend. PHOTO CREDIT: Hannah Charron
The RhodyTHON “Like a Kid” Game Day, held on Oct. 24, allowed the RhodyTHON executive board to get together and form connections with Miracle Families from Hasbro Children’s Hospital all while playing fun games.
Paige Nickla, resident and executive director of RhodyTHON, said the game day was a “Cause Connection Event” for the executive board that allowed them to meet and have conversations with Miracle Families.
Nickla described a Miracle Family as “a family selected by Hasbro Children’s Hospital to participate in a variety of events to fundraise” for the hospital. Children are highlighted and picked to go to these events where they and their families can meet and connect with others in similar situations.
One of the children at the event on Sunday was Kai Vitolo, who, as his mother Kathie Vitolo described, is a 10-year-old, a fourth grader and a “pre-professional [ballet] dancer.” Kai was diagnosed with a tree nut allergy at around the age of four when he went into anaphylactic shock. He went to Hasbro Children’s Hospital for treatment and has been going ever since.
On the importance of coming to an event like this, Kathie said it brings awareness to issues that children with medical needs face.
“[It’s] also nice for potential medical providers that might have [given] services [because] it puts a name to the face,” she said, as it develops a more personal connection between the child and whoever is helping them.
Six-year-old Gemma Reall was also at the event, and her mother Traci Reall spoke about her daughter and the importance of coming to events like this. Gemma was born premature with esophageal atresia, a condition babies are born with that means they have, as Traci described it, “no connection from their esophagus to stomach.”
Gemma was dependent on suction and fed with a g-tube, and spent the first nine months of her life at Hasbro Children’s Hospital and Women and Infants.
Reall said that their family is very involved with Hasbro Children’s Hospital and credited them with “[saving] Gemma’s life.” Her family likes giving back to the hospital and has been a part of RhodyTHON since 2019.
Reall has been “blown away” by the college students and what they have done through events like the Game Day. According to Tracy, Gemma had been talking about coming to this RhodyTHON event weeks in advance and likes to talk about when she is going to see her “college friends” next.
Gemma has also built relationships with other Miracle Kids, which are connections that her mother said she would not get at school.
“The diagnosis doesn’t stop when they leave the hospital,” Reall said, and events like this encourage Gemma to keep going.
Nickla mentioned how COVID-19 made it hard to put on such events, and since most members of the executive board are underclassmen, this was the first time they were able to all get together to meet.
Having in-person events creates deeper relationships among the board and the families they are helping with all the fundraising they do, according to Nickla.
During the two-hour event, everyone played board games like Sorry and Monopoly, got some snacks from the Rhody Eatz food truck and played three rounds of bingo. When Kai won the last round, everyone clapped for him and cheered him on, showing the sense of community that was formed among the Miracle Families and RhodyTHON executive board.
“Relationships form our ‘why,’” Nickla said. “Why we do this and spread awareness for the hospital.”