By Meg Kellett, Chief Program Officer, Project Sunshine
When you spend your days in pediatric care, you learn quickly that healing isn’t just about medicine. It’s about moments. It’s about connection. And more often than people expect, it involves play.
As a child life specialist, I’ve seen firsthand how play transforms the clinical experience for children and families. It’s easy to think of play as something extra, something nice to have if there’s time. But in our world, play is essential. It’s how children cope, communicate, and make sense of what’s happening around them.
Hospitals are overwhelming. They’re filled with unfamiliar faces, strange equipment, and routines that feel completely out of a child’s control. For a child, that loss of control can be one of the most distressing parts of being sick.
Play gives some of that control back.
When a child picks up a toy stethoscope and “treats” a teddy bear, they’re not just playing—they’re processing. They’re rehearsing what’s going to happen to them in a way that feels safe and manageable. When they choose the color of a craft or the character in a story, they’re making decisions in an environment where so much feels decided for them.
Play creates a language where words sometimes fall short.
Not every child can articulate fear or anxiety, especially in a clinical setting. But give them a paintbrush, a puppet, or a game, and you can get a sense of how they might be feeling. You see the bravery, the frustration, the questions. Play allows care teams, caregivers, and hild life specialists to step inside their world and support them more meaningfully.
And the impact goes beyond the social and emotional.
We know that when children are less anxious, they’re more cooperative with procedures. They’re better able to follow treatment plans. Their overall experience improves—and that matters. Because pediatric care isn’t just about outcomes; it’s about how children and families experience the journey to get there.
A diagnosis doesn’t take away a child’s need to laugh, imagine, and explore. In fact, those needs often become even more important. Play restores a sense of normalcy in an environment that feels anything but normal. It creates joy in places where joy can feel out of reach.
That’s why on June 20, Project Sunshine is hosting a Play-A-Thon at Chelsea Piers Brooklyn Fieldhouse in Prospect Heights to bring together families and friends for a free event to celebrate the Summer Solstice and play for a cause!
And, you can start a team with your friends, family, fellow clinical professionals, and anyone you know who needs more play. Through your hours of play, your team can raise funds for Project Sunshine and support kids in medical settings who need play more than ever.
When we play, it reminds us of something deeply human: kids are still kids, even in the hardest moments. And during the June Summer Solstice Play-A-Thon, we can join them in play and support them in being kids.
About Project Sunshine
A proud partner of Weill Cornell medicine, Project Sunshine has been providing volunteer-led activities and programmatic support to their pediatric patients for more than 20 years. Founded in 1998, Project Sunshine delivers the healing power of play to children with medical needs through a global network of trained volunteers, corporate partners, and hospital collaborators. With programs including Here to Play (in-person sessions), Kits for Play (activity kits), and TelePlay (live virtual play sessions), Project Sunshine reaches over 250,000 pediatric patients and families annually across 500 medical facilities worldwide.