UCLA Best Buddies bring smiles to hospitalized kids

  TYSON EVANS Children play in front of a fireplace during
the UCLA Best Buddies community outreach program over the
weekend.

By Marjorie Hernandez
Daily Bruin Reporter

Cheers of “bingo” and “you sank my
battleship” echoed across the atrium as student volunteers
and their buddies visited hospital patients together, marking the
first community outreach event for the UCLA Best Buddies.

The program provided a Saturday afternoon of fun and friendship
to the Los Angeles Shriners Hospital for Children, as 50 student
volunteers and their buddies ““ local high school students and
adults with mild to moderate developmental disabilities ““
played games with the young patients.

Hospital staff noted the positive effects the student and buddy
volunteers provide by giving patients a chance to interact with
other young people from the community.

“It’s a good thing for our patients to be exposed
and to see others with disabilities,” said Shriners Hospital
recreation therapy aide Eduardo Lopez. “It shows our patients
that even though they have a disability, they also can do something
positive.”

Many of the patients and the buddy pairs spoke different
languages, but they continued to communicate, demonstrating common
experiences can transcend barriers.

Fifteen-year-old patient Leticia Montano, originally from
Mexicali, and volunteer Carl Brown had to communicate through an
interpreter, but both seemed to understand one another as Montano
tried to explain the pictures on her Mexican Bingo cards.

“It feels like they know how to treat the patients
already,” said Montano, who is being treated for juvenile
rheumatism arthritis. “Sometimes visitors come here and they
don’t know about the disabilities and they don’t know
how to treat us. At least (the buddies) know how … it
feels.”

The L.A. Shriners Hospital for Children is part of a network of
22 hospitals that provide free medical care for children with burn
injuries or orthopedic problems.

Student volunteers and their buddies were equally excited to
bring cheer to hospital patients.

“I feel really bad for them because they have to be in the
hospital,” Brown said. “We go out all the
time.”

As part of the Best Buddies program, student volunteers maintain
close contact with their buddies through phone calls, e-mails and
attending social gatherings together.

Before the event, volunteers were trained to address questions
or concerns their buddies may have about the hospital or its
patients.

“We were a little nervous because this is the first time
that we are taking them to an environment that they are not really
used to,” fifth-year microbiology student and Best Buddy
co-director Gauree Gupta said prior to leaving for the hospital.
“They might see kids who have physical injuries that they
have not seen before.”

Best Buddies co-director and recent physiological sciences and
psychology graduate Natt Songdej said he hopes this event will
encourage buddies to give back to the community.

“We just hope to empower (the buddies) socially through
volunteering and getting them involved in the community, which in
turn will build their self-esteem so they can feel that they are
active participants in society,” he said.