Ways to HelpWays to Give Toy & Gift Donations
Generous gifts fuel our hospital every day — we’re lucky to have such great supporters whose contributions help speed the healing of children at our main hospital as well as our outpatient centers.
While we love receiving toys, there are other areas of need where your contribution will make a difference. We really appreciate gift certificate donations that we can use to purchase enabling devices and toys. For a full list of the items we’d like the most, please see more information about our donation wish list below.
We use gift donations for different purposes year round. For example, children often have the chance to pick a prize after a particularly hard day or on a special occasion, such as finishing a round of treatment. Also, Skylight TV, our closed-circuit, interactive television station, hosts several in-house television game shows each week. Everybody’s a winner on Skylight TV, so children receive small prizes daily.
If you are interested in donating an item to our patients, please consider the following:
If you would like to mail your gift, please address the package to:
Donations, Box 31
Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago
225 E. Chicago Avenue, Box 31
Chicago, IL 60611-2605
Small gifts and prizes are always needed – keeping gifts portable helps us share them with more children in more areas of the hospital. We also list suggestions by age for infants, toddler/preschool, school age and teens.
Many of our children with special needs and disabilities require specialized, adaptive toys, and we gladly accept gift cards from Ablenet . Your gift card will then be used by a child life specialist to purchase an adaptive toy to use during therapy with patients with disabilities.
Keeping kids safe is central to our mission. Before you give, please check with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Also, please remember that we can only accept recently purchased, unwrapped gifts.
For the safety of our patients, Lurie Children's follows strict donation guidelines, especially when it comes to stuffed animals and other soft-surface items. We ask that donated stuffed animals be brand new and recently purchased. Please note that we cannot accept soft toys that have been in someone's possession (collection, storage, display, etc.), even if they've never been played with.
Please place purchased stuffed animals in plastic bags immediately after they're purchased. We also request that you don't remove the stuffed animals from those bags and that they're delivered to the hospital in those original plastic bags. Keeping the stuffed animal in the same, unopened bag helps keep the toys clean and prevents transmission of harmful household allergens, such as pet dander, tobacco smoke, dust mites, etc.
To protect our patients from unknown allergens, especially those who are immunosuppressed, we ask our donors to avoid collecting toys and gifts for our patients through donation boxes place in public spaces, such as stores, churches, building hallways, etc.
Did you know that the majority of our patients are under the age of three?
The vast majority of Children’s Services and Child Life programming we offer to patients and families at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago is being sponsored by philanthropy – we are lucky to have such great supporters whose contributions help speed the healing of children in our care. Receiving age appropriate toys and other items allow us to create a better and brighter healing environment for patients. Donated toys and items from our Amazon Wish Lists are used as tools to work with patients to help and encourage them in their recovery process as well as to support their ongoing development.
The Emergency Fund provides assistance to families experiencing extreme financial hardship due to their child's illness. It helps with clothing, utilities, transportation costs and other essentials. Funds are carefully allocated after a full evaluation of the family's needs on a case-by-case basis. To support the Emergency Fund, give online now and note that your gift is for the Emergency Fund, or mail your contribution to:
Social Work Manager/Emergency Fund
Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago
225 E. Chicago Avenue
Chicago, IL 60611-2605
A child's illness can devastate a family's finances. Gift certificates to local stores can help struggling parents provide a holiday celebration for their families. Donated gift certificates are distributed to selected families by hospital staff. To support Partners with Parents, give online now and note that your gift is for Partners with Parents, or send gift certificates for moderately priced, easily accessible toy, clothing and food stores to:
Susan Ruohonen/Partners with Parents
Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago
225 E. Chicago Avenue
Chicago, IL 60611-2605
