Our Mission

 

Youth Inspire is proud to announce its partnership with the University of Virginia's Children’s Hospital. In 2014, Youth Inspire alongside hospital leadership designed a unique, patient-centered volunteering experience that drew great interest from the UVA undergraduate community. In January 2015, Youth Inspire received official recognition as a Contracted Independent Organization (CIO) of the university. After a thorough round of applications and interviews, the program welcomed volunteer members to devote their diverse talents and creativity to the organization’s mission: to foster peer interaction in order to make the clinical environment less isolated for young patients. 

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Since then, we have raised thousands of dollars with the help of the corporate sponsors and the university. We have also held fundraisers through the Hoos Helping Teens program. These valuable contributions have allowed us to create health-learning workshops for pediatric patients on a wide variety of topics, ranging from hydration and sun safety, mindfulness and meditation, flu prevention, Halloween safety, human anatomy, and more. Workshops and classes are specifically designed for different patient demographics. In 2015, we also organized a university-wide event called Hooliday Cards for Kids, in which we gave UVA students the opportunity to create personalized, meaningful holiday cards that would be distributed to the pediatric patients at the hospital. 

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Having a diverse and passionate group of UVA student volunteers has helped the program expand and flourish.