One simple question can alter a person’s life. “How did you get so good at make-up?” Eleanor asked her friend, completely unaware of the impact the response would have on her. “Well, when I was in the hospital for an extended period of time, I was always bored. My only two options for entertainment were drawing on myself (make up) or drawing on paper.” Imagine a world where each day you wake up in a bland hospital bed, with plain walls, the same-old hospital robe on you, and nothing but gray in the air and surroundings. You glance over to the television in your room and notice the same re-run of the same episode you’ve seen countless times from that same hospital bed. You get up to go get breakfast; you follow the emotionless, white walls down the hallway, to go get the same food you’ve had many times. After eating, you go back to your dull room after little socializing to become bored, yet again. The idea behind Happy Healthy Humanity is to bring a demise to the dreariness that fills the lives of children in hospitals. So, by the donations collected, money will be used to buy stuffed animals, games, books, art supplies, crafts, and baby toy for MassGeneral for Children Hospital in Salem, Massachusetts to help create smiles amongst the children residing there. Additionally, we will work with local schools and organizations to make cards to be given to the children. For the kids receiving these cards, they will know that someone is thinking of them, they will have more positive thoughts and smiles, and they will have more hope. To help promote the impact Happy Healthy Humanity has on the people living in hospitals, a member from the team will go and speak to the schools and organizations and talk about the importance of helping others, the impact of Happy Healthy Humanity, and achieving one’s dreams. I feel as if Happy Healthy Humanity also ties into achieving one’s dreams as Eleanor would not be typing this had she not gone to the Sponsr.Us Ignite conference at Harvard last October. While creating a nonprofit has been an idea in Eleanor’s head for a while, the conference gave her the final push to just do it, and not allowing the fear of failing to stop her from trying.

In Eleanor’s sophomore year of high school, she remembers asking one of her friends a simple question as to how she got good at make-up. In which she responded with “Well, when I was in the hospital for an extended period of time, I was always bored. My only two options for entertainment were drawing on myself (make up) or drawing on paper.” Those two sentences stuck in her mind for a while. As Eleanor continued to live her life, she found out that another one of her best friends was also in the hospital for an extended period of time, and she agreed that there was nothing to do at all. And the lack of activity made her treatment and time in the hospital that much worse and dreadful. Being one who always looks to help others, as she empathizes with them, Eleanor just could not let the idea that so many people, who already have hardships, are suffering even more than they have to, when she could do something to help.

Nothing makes us happier than helping people. We do know understand why more people do not help others, when it often involves excreting little to no effort to impact someone’s life immensely. Seeing as we empathize with others, we could not let the idea of helping people, who already suffer hardships by being in the hospital, leave our minds. Why increase their burden when we could so easily perform a small action that would mean a lot to them?

We will impact the children who are stuck living in hospitals (and possibly the nurses and their family members), as well as the children who make them cards, as they will learn about the issue Happy Healthy Humanity addresses, the idea of helping others, and the idea of never giving up on one’s dream.