Guest Blog: Kraftlove Celebrates 6th Anniversary
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and May 7th was National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day. In honor of both, we asked Anhvinh Wright, President and Founder of Kraftlove Inc. – a nonprofit in McLean, VA that provides creative crafting kits to hospitalized children facing a variety of illnesses and challenges mainly around the Washington DC area – to share how Kraftlove is continuing to bring joy through art to pediatric patients throughout the challenges of the pandemic.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month! It is a good time to remember the importance of maintaining good mental health, especially during the difficult year that we have all experienced with the pandemic and the social and political upheaval our nation has faced.
This pandemic has posed so many physical, emotional and mental challenges for everyone, especially children who have been asked to adapt from in-person to virtual learning. Additionally, children have had to adjust to social isolation from family and friends, which has undoubtedly affected their mental health. Now imagine how much of a challenge that disruption has caused for hospitalized children dealing with chronic and debilitating illnesses. At a time when they need the love and support of their family and friends the most, visitor restrictions at hospitals have prevented pediatric patients from having that support system in place.
That is why the work we do at Kraftlove continues to be so important. Kraftlove's mission is to bring a sense of normalcy and joy to sick children through art. We are happy to report that since Kraftlove's launch in May 2015, we have donated 4,000+ art boxes to more than 10 children's hospitals in the DC Metro area and nationwide. That means we have helped bring joy through crafting to over 4,000 pediatric patients. While this pandemic has temporarily disrupted our partnership with several hospitals due to safety measures and hospital restrictions on in-kind donations, we are happy to report that we have been able to maintain our partnership with Children's National Hospital throughout this past year. We hope that we can resume donations to all the hospitals we previously worked with pre-Covid once things get back to normal, and we also hope to continue to expand our reach in the future.
Unfortunately, this pandemic has also prevented us from holding Kraftlove parties, where community organizations come together to assemble hundreds of boxes to be donated to hospitalized children. We are so thankful to community organizations, like PRMS, that have hosted multiple Kraftlove parties since our inception. We love working with PRMS because they give back so much to their community, and we deeply appreciate their continual support and look forward to working with them again in the near future.
We can't wait to spread the love and joy of crafting through our Kraftlove art boxes to more hospitalized children in the near future!
Spring 2021 Kraftlove box project.
For more information on Kraftlove, please contact Anhvinh Wright, President of Kraftlove Inc., at info@kraftlove.com or visit www.kraftlove.com.
To learn more about the superior psychiatry-specific insurance program and comprehensive services offered by PRMS, click here.