Having blood drawn is rarely something to look forward to. When you’re only 3 years old or even 12 years old, it might even be scary! That’s where we come in. I’m Boone, a black Labrador retriever. My brother Hoss and I are proud members of the Animal Assisted Therapy Program here at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin. There are 17 of us dogs in all. We allow handlers – who happen to be humans – to come along with us when we make rounds. But really, it’s all about the children we help.

Doctors, nurses, therapists and parents may request our help for any number of reasons. We make rounds just like the doctors do. Our rounds include clinics and the hospital, from imaging, oncology and Herma Heart Center, to occupational, physical and speech therapies and the lab. On any given day we average 27 service requests and we visit the hospital Monday through Friday.

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Yesterday was a red-letter day for Children’s as we work to improve the health of children everywhere. Children’s has provided some assistance to the victims of the Haitian earthquake. News reports tell how quickly basic supplies were depleted in Haiti in the face of such overwhelming need. A spontaneous collaboration grew from a conversation with our board member Joel Quadracci and CEO Peggy Troy about how we could send help.

In a few hours we were able to pull together a donation of antibiotics, dressings, bandages, formula, slippers, crutches and more… we are indeed fortunate to have supplies to share. The fantastic part is that the materials were collected, assembled, transported and delivered by the Quad/Graphics airplane so quickly and so efficiently. They safely flew to the Dominican Republic and were delivered to the Red Cross in Santo Domingo at 02:00 this morning, less than 24 hours after Joel and Peggy’s conversation. Now the supplies are crossing the border to Haiti where they will do a world of good.

After thanking everyone who helped, I went home proud of what we had done, proud of my organization and my community, and grateful to be a part of some help for kids and families who have been badly hurt by a devastating natural disaster.

-Tracy Cleveland, director, Materials Services, Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin

Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Jeanne Connor and her family, of Muskego, participated in the grand opening ribbon tying ceremony.

We are thrilled to announce that our New Berlin clinic opened and is seeing its first patients today. Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin-New Berlin Clinics is located just north of I-43 at the intersection of Moorland and Beloit Roads. It is a beautiful new three-story, 75,000 square foot space. This is Children’s first venture into opening an outpatient center that will provide a place for many of the same pediatric specialists who practice at Children’s Hospital to see patients closer to families who live in New Berlin and surrounding communities.

We’ve had the opportunity to speak with so many of our families who come to Children’s Hospital for specialty care who now can have that same care closer to home in a much more convenient setting. Our goal is to make life easier for parents.

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Pirates meet patients at Children's Hospital!

As a performer with First Stage Children’s Theater, I was fortunate to visit Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin for our annual end-of-season performance there. And what a show it was! The production is called “How I Became A Pirate.”

We left the Todd Wehr Theater at the Marcus Center in downtown Milwaukee in our costumes and five of us “pirates” rode in my dad’s van. It was particularly amusing to pass people on the street who noticed a van full of pirates. From the moment we arrived until the moment we left, the staff at Children’s Hospital couldn’t have been more gracious and friendly. They joked with us about how we probably didn’t need to wear visitor passes because we would be fairly easy to identify.

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