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A brave hat for a brave heart

The hospital can be scary at any age, but for children, it can be especially daunting.
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March 2, 2016

The hospital can be scary at any age, but for children, it can be especially daunting.

Unless, like Abraham McGinty, they’ve got a “brave hat.” The 6-year-old received his felt hat as part of the Happy Hats for Kids Hero Club while undergoing treatment for epilepsy at Miller Children’s & Women’s Hospital in Long Beach.

“The joy he has and continues to have with his Happy Hat is unbelievable,” said his mother, Stacy, a member of Congregation Ner Tamid in Rancho Palos Verdes. “He calls it his ‘brave hat’ and has continued to bring it with us to multiple appointments.”

Hero Club kits include a red-trimmed blue hat that has a yellow star, crayons, and a 60-page story and coloring book that teaches children about hospital procedures. They are made by Happy Hats for Kids in Hospitals, a nonprofit started by Los Angeles native Sheri Schrier. 

Established in 1991, the program delivers the English- and Spanish-language kits to 63 hospitals around the country on a monthly basis, including local facilities like LAC+USC Medical Center, Shriners Hospital for Children-Los Angeles, Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital and White Memorial Medical Center. It provides hats to hospitalized children during the major holidays, as well. 

“All the families are thinking about is their pain during that time,” Schrier said. “They’re depressed and down and spend many hours a day with their child in the hospital. Then here comes this little gift, and they get very excited.”

Schrier, 73, who used to design and manufacture golf and tennis headwear, began Happy Hats for Kids in Hospitals following the loss of her grandmother, father, mother, and younger brother to cancer. She works at her organization full time, visiting the facilities it currently services while attempting to expand that number to 100 within the next year. 

“Every time I go into a hospital, it gives me nachas to see the children and their families smiling,” she said. “They get to keep the hats, which are high quality. It’s important for me to give the children something they can use for a very long time.”

Schrier said she typically visits patients during holidays, such as Chanukah, Passover, Christmas, Halloween, the Fourth of July and Easter. She hands out special themed hats and celebrates with those who can’t be at home. 

“We bring the whole event to them through hats,” she said. “There’s a lot of laughter in the rooms and the halls.”

Some of the hats have even gone global. They’ve been distributed in Russia, Italy and El Salvador, and have gone to Israeli hospitals such as Bikur Cholim Hospital and Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, as well as Assaf Harofeh Medical Center near Tel Aviv. 

“I feel blessed that people take them to foreign countries,” Schrier said. “It’s a mitzvah to give them to children throughout the world.”

For the past 20 years, inmates at the California Institution for Women, a prison in Chino, have sewn the hats. 

“It touches the prisoners’ hearts,” Schrier said. “They miss their own children but at least they’re doing something to help other children.”  

The hats are decorated and packaged by young adults with special needs between the ages of 18 and 22 who are part of the Los Angeles County Office of Education’s transition to work program. Following high school, these young adults — who have cerebral palsy, autism, Down syndrome, and hearing and visual impairments — work on hats for the organization two hours a day, two days a week. 

Tim Smith, a career teacher for the Los Angeles County Office of Education, oversees these volunteers. He said that through their Happy Hats shifts they’re getting valuable work experience. 

“They’re able to learn a new task and develop the skills needed to sustain a two-hour work shift,” he said.

Happy Hats for Kids in Hospitals also encourages mitzvah projects and offers accompanying workshops. The organization will donate the hats on volunteers’ behalf or the volunteers themselves can deliver the hats. 

The monthly delivery of hats at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center is a definite pick-me-up for young patients, according to Shari Ottenstein, outpatient activity coordinator.

“It puts smiles on their faces and hopefully gives them good memories of the hospital and their visit,” she said. “Most kids aren’t too keen on going to the hospital. It lifts their spirits, and they look adorable.” 

Stacy McGinty said the hat has improved her son’s overall experience.

“I think it is important to thank Sheri [Schrier] and Happy Hats for the gift of helping little ones be brave with whatever they are going through,” she said. “As a mother, it has been amazing and I am so grateful.”

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