About Cards for Hospitalized Kids
From One Girl's Idea to an International Movement
Finding Hope in Extreme Pain
In Feburary of 2011, Jen Rubino was lying in the Intensive Care Unit(I.C.U) trying to recover from her sixteenth surgery to treat a serious injury caused by the serious illness she had been battling since age 11. The ICU is the hospital unit for the sickest patients and is a place where no one wants to be. While her friends were thinking about junior prom, she was just trying to survivie. She had undergone many surgeries before and spent many days in the hospital after from everything, but this was different.
"When I was in the ICU, it really hit me how much I was missing out on and that I would never know what it was like to be a normal teen. I had spent years fighting and I just felt like giving up" said Rubino.
Two days after the surgery, Rubino awoke from a nap to find a handmade blanket and card that a hospital volunteer had dropped off for her. The card said "Stay Strong" and brightened Rubino's day in the midst of such extreme struggles.
"It made me realize that I wasn't forgotten about because I was sick. A card may seem simple to the average person, but it can truly mean the world to a kid suffering in the hospital, as it did for me" said Jen.
While the card didn't solve her medical problems, it helped give Jen what the doctors couldn't: hope. When Jen was released from the hospital in early March, she left on a mission to give that sense of hope to other kids.
Despite still being in extreme pain herself and facing months of rehab for the surgery, she and her friends began making cards to give to local hospitals each month. Soon after, she offically launched Cards for Hospitalized Kids(CFHK). The same drive that once helped her succeed as a competitive gymnast and thrive in school despite all her challenges was now helping her on a new mission: helping other kids facing the challenges she herself has faced and continues to face.
Transforming From An Idea to a Movement
Cards for Hospitalized Kids began with a simple idea of helping others. It has transformed into a movement with card-making supporters around the world, celebrity supporters and, most importantly, thousands of smiling card-receiving patients and their families. How did this transformation occur?
Jen Rubino built CFHK from the ground up. She began locally in her community by partnering with a local library to host monthly card-making events and began establishing constacts with all Children's hospitals in Illinois. She then worked on going national. She established a website with card-making instructions that allow people in any location to get involved with CFHK. She also began utilizing social media to get the word out, which is really where CFHK's support base was built. Jen also reached out to celebrities from Olympians to Singers to TV stars. Not only were the celebrities supporting CFHK able to help Jen spread the word on social media, but they also helped brighten the days of patients by signing autographs for the kids to receive along with the cards.
In 2013, CFHK also reached a new level: international. CFHK now has card-making supporters worldwide and cards have arrived from around the world including Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Israel, and more!
An Impact of Another Kind
"In the ICU, day meets night, life meets death and hope is all you have" ---Kendall, a Liver Transplant Recipient
"When I saw my cards give others that sense of hope someone gave me in my darkest hour, I knew I wanted to take this as far as possible."
--Jen Rubino
When Jen Rubino created CFHK, all she wanted to do was help other kids facing serious health issues. Not only has she been able to help thousands of more kids than she ever expected, but she has been able to make an imapct of another kind: inspiring people.
As CFHK has continued to grow, Jen has shared her experiences being able to help others through CFHK as well as her personals story and turning her pain and tragedy into a triumph. She has shared her story in media publications locally, nationaly and even internationally. Through this, she has been able to inspire people to give back and perserveree through their own challenges.