Delaware’s Kinley Strohl determined to make hospital stays more pleasant for other children

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Delaware resident Kinley Strohl, age 10, knows what it is like to be confined to a hospital bed.

When she was 6 years old, she spent 66 days straight at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in order to receive a bone marrow transplant that would help her to fight her acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Now in remission, Kinley says she does not remember much of her time in the hospital. One of the things she does remember, however, is that crafts were one of the bright spots of her time at the hospital.

With this in mind, she is determined to help other children by providing craft supplies for Nationwide’s.

Kinley and her mother, Michelle Strohl, have paired with Red Basket to raise money to help them to reach their craft supply goal for this Christmas. Their goal is to donate 100 craft kits. The cost of each kit is $10.

“I think it’s important to give back to the hospital because there were a lot of people that donated to our family when Kinley was sick,” said Michelle. “It’s our way of giving back to the hospital and saying ‘thank you.’”

She said she also feels that donating the crafts is important because “it’s important that the kids know that somebody in the outside world cares.”

Today, Kinley is a happy fifth-grade student whose favorite subject is “probably reading” and who hopes to be a flight nurse someday. Her unpleasant memories of the hospital have faded, although she recalls that she “didn’t like the medicine.”

Her face lights up, however, when she remembers “those little flower pot things” that she made one day when she was in the hospital. Michelle Strohl hopes that donating craft supplies will allow other children to look back at their time in the hospital with some pleasant memories.

Crafts or monetary donations are welcome. New supplies are encouraged as many of the patients, including those who will receive bone marrow transplants like Kinley did, are only allowed to play with brand-new toys due to the compromised state of their immune systems.

More information can be found at the Kinley’s Krafts Facebook page. Monetary donations can be made at https://redbasket.org/686/kinleys-krafts.

Kinley Strohl
http://aimmedianetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/2015/10/web1_c6f391990609fe10a8f79796cc6171d9bb68a9ce.jpgKinley Strohl

By Megan Neary

For The Gazette

Megan Neary can be reached at [email protected].

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