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Hi, I'm Dr. Weinstein and I am the Director of the Childhood Cancer Program at the Mass
General Hospital for Children.
So you know iFundRays with GSQ, how does my fundraising help you?
Well firstly, Ariel, thank you so much for doing all the fundraising for the Granite
State Quest or the GSQ.
Every year we count on all the money raised from the GSQ to really boost our efforts to
cure kids with cancer and the money gets used differently each year.
We generally use the money to support some of our research.
We also want to make sure that our patients have the easiest possible journey during their
cancer treatment, so we use the money to help support activities in the clinic that might
include child life, art therapy, music therapy, massage therapy, and we also support some
of the work that the doctors are doing, that's called clinical research, where we're using
new therapies to try to improve the cure rates for every type of childhood cancer.
And each year we really depend upon the money raised by the GSQ because we don't have sufficient
money coming from grants and the government to help us do what we really want to do and
that is to cure every single child who has cancer.
I'm here with Sam.
Sam, can you introduce yourself?
Hi, Ariel.
I'm Sam Purna.
I am a research scientist and working at the Department of Radiation Oncology in association
with the Cancer Center here at MGH.
So basically my work is focused on finding cures for children's cancer, which has minimal
toxicity, so that's what I'm trying to do here.
So you know how I fundraise with GSQ.
How does my fundraising help you?
Well, I mean, fundraising has always been an integral part of research.
What is true is very less percent of the federal funding is actually allotted for children's
cancer research.
So we as researchers have to depend a lot on the money that is raised from all those
campaigns, which can support our work because research is crazy expensive, so we need to
fund that and the money need to come from somewhere.
That way the fundraising is very helpful for my research.
Thank you.
Hi, Heather.
How are you doing?
Hey, Ariel.
How are you?
I'm good.
Thanks.
So you know how I fundraise for GSQ?
I do.
I'm very proud of all the great work.
How does my fundraising help you?
Well, I, as you know, Ariel, am one of the Child Life Specialists here and my role in
our Child Life Program is funded entirely by philanthropy.
So without great people like yourself and your team and the Grand State Quest, we wouldn't
be able to have Child Life here, as some people may or may not know.
As a Child Life Specialist, my job is to help the patients and we see everyone, whether
they're babies up to those in college, their brothers and sisters, and their family cope
with being in the healthcare environment.
So you know, some of what I do is helping them understand their diagnosis, helping them
throughout the process, teaching them about their disease and their illness, and making
this more of a comfortable place.
We really want to foster those great positive coping skills and some of that work we do
by talking about things, doing things, maybe getting out in the community and having different
community groups in.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
So I'm here with Lori.
Can you tell us what you do here?
I can.
So I'm a music therapist here primarily, but I'm also the co-director of our Integrative
Therapies program, which does acupuncture, massage, music therapy, art therapy, yoga,
tai chi, qigong for all of our patients at the Cancer Center.
So you know I do fundraising with GSQ.
How does that help you?
So the answer is yes, I do know you do fundraising.
And the funding that you provide us actually does quite a bit because as a music therapist,
fundraising helps us go wherever kids are in the hospital, not just if they come to the
outpatient clinic, but it allows us to follow them if they go inpatient or if they get really
sick and have to go to the PICU, or then if they come back.
Music therapy is everywhere in the hospital where there is a kid, which is pretty amazing.
And then it also helps us bring acupuncture and massage and art therapy also to anywhere
in the hospital where we have pediatric patients.
Why is music important in the clinic?
I know why it's important, but why is it important to you?
Well I think music therapy is a really important part of our team here because music is something
that kids kind of just generally understand and it feels like a safe place for them.
So we can use music's safety as a place to help kids feel more relaxed.
It can help them kind of have fun while they're here.
It can also reduce their pain.
Plus, I think one of the cool things is it can help you learn something brand new that
you can then actually keep doing when you're not at the hospital and it kind of takes your
mind off of what you're doing here and helps you think about all of these other things
and all these other parts of your life that are really important to you.
So how does your work help children at the hospital?
That's a good question.
So I think there's a lot of different ways.
Sometimes I meet people that love to do arts and crafts and so it's really fun for them
to make a duct tape wallet or a slime or a t-shirt or a hat and then sometimes I meet
people that they don't like arts and crafts but they love to play games.
So we get to do card games or board games and then sometimes there's people they just
want, they're bored, they want something to do or sometimes if they don't feel so good
it's kind of makes them feel better to play a game or do an art project.
So for every person it could be different, it could be like a distraction or it could
be something they really love to do and sometimes we just hang out and we can talk about like
TV or movies.
I know exactly what you're talking about because I was doing the same things with you.
Yeah, so it can be a lot of fun.
I think every day is different.
Thank you.
Take this and touch your nose and then touch my finger with it too.
Good, back and forth, other hand.
Well done.
Okay, I'm going to use it for white lifting.
Yeah, you know me for eight years now and you know that I do fundraising with GSQ.
How does that help you?
Well, Arrio, it helps us in many ways.
It helps us by providing more than just medical care to young people like you and it allows
us to provide supports from people with many different types of skills and talents that
I think are very important to assist families and children and young adults like yourself
get through incredibly difficult challenges that require more than just medicines or radiation
or fancy surgeons.
It requires people who can provide guidance about how to get through school and make the
most of that.
People to help with disappointments and difficult challenges that perhaps weren't expected
along the way that can be really tough and where strength in a child or a young adult
and a family isn't enough, you really need other people to help you get through those
challenges, whether they're expected or not.
And it helps us with recruiting friends who do really remarkable research so that we learn
how to do a better job of providing care and getting people like yourself healthy and keeping
you that way.
So I think there are many very important things that the fundraising assists us with and each
of those different things, whether it's research or helping with school or helping someone
get through the day in the clinic with child life, looking after the day-to-day needs here
during the many visits or music or artwork, all the things that make putting up with what
you have to go through here with us guys less difficult I think are extraordinarily important
and are supported by the money that people like yourself help us collect.
So we're very thankful for that and we certainly understand that everything we do has tremendous
amount of room for improvement and we count on people like you and your mom and dad to
let us know what things we need to do better and to help us and guide us and support us
in trying to improve what we have to offer.
And we're very grateful for the assistance that you and your family and all your friends
have provided.
Thank you.
So I know you're the captain of the marathon team and you ride with us while we're doing
the GSQ.
Can you tell us more about that?
Sure.
I love to participate in all of our events and I feel that I get a chance to really get
to know my patients and their families much, much better.
So every year I have been riding the GSQ and I also participate in the Boston Marathon
each year to raise money for our program.
Those events are really, really special and I'm not the only one in our clinic that does
that.
A lot of our doctors and nurses also participate in the fundraising events and we feel this
is really, you know, bonding us to our families and patients and creating a really neat community.
Thank you.
So one of the things that I want the people that are watching this video to know is that
the funding that ARIA raises for our program for integrative therapies, for art, music,
massage and acupuncture, we are 100% philanthropically funded.
So without your help, there could be a day that a child comes into the clinic for the
first time and there's no services here to help kind of ease their pain and make them
feel like this is a place that they can feel safe in.
So thank you for everything that you do give to support ARIA because it helps our patients
here have a much, much better experience.
Thank you.
