No Tricks, Just Treats for Cedars-Sinai Guerin Children’s Patients
LA Rams and NICU Volunteers Bring Halloween Magic to Patients and Families
Halloween brought plenty of treats, adorable costumes and some special visitors to Cedars-Sinai Guerin Children’s, where patients and families celebrated the holiday with a little help from Los Angeles Rams players and community volunteers.
At the Guerin Children’s Healing Garden, Rams players, including defensive end Myles Garrett, joined current and former patients for a Halloween party, playing games, handing out holiday treats and posing for photos. The team’s mascot, Rampage, also made an appearance, dressed in a turkey costume.
For children unable to leave their hospital rooms, the Rams players made bedside visits, signed hats and posed for photos, offering a welcome break from hospital routines.
“It’s an amazing time anytime you can put smiles on children’s faces, especially when they’re going through things,” Garrett said. “You just get an opportunity to be a light in someone’s life for just a moment.”
Meanwhile, in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Guerin Children’s, parents selected handmade costumes for their babies’ first Halloween. The custom-made outfits, which are inspired by children’s storybook characters, have become an annual tradition, giving parents a keepsake to remember their little ones’ first Halloween.
Sewn by volunteers, the costumes feature easy-to-use Velcro to accommodate the babies’ medical wires and tubes. Parents chose adorable designs, including a pumpkin, watermelon, Minnie Mouse, a tiger and a ladybug, complete with a matching hat.
For 9-week-old Siya, mom Shivani Malavia chose a Minnie Mouse costume to match her own.
“Siya is my ‘mini-me,’ and she looks just like her older sister, who was also Minnie Mouse for her first Halloween,” Malavia said.
Parents Jordan Bach and Elizabeth Tod were excited to pick out a pumpkin costume for their son Lachlan.
“This is really exciting,” Tod said. “I was worried about not having a normal Halloween experience, but this made it feel real.”
Hospital staff also joined the festivities and dressed up to match the event’s ’80s theme.
“Parents don’t have the opportunity to celebrate Halloween when they’re in the NICU. So, having the volunteers make costumes and being able to dress their babies up and the staff dressing up really brings some normalcy to their NICU stay and makes parents happy,” said Bevin Merideth, MSN, associate director of the NICU at Guerin Children’s.
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