Care. Compassion. Cuddles
Providing arms to hold every child in need at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles
The Challenge: While there are plenty of people ready to volunteer to hold these little ones, there are insufficient resources to manage the program. We have a goal of raising $317,839 to cover all program expenses for 3 years at a time. This money goes directly towards a full-time CHLA staff member to operate the cuddler program.
Purpose: Koala Corps was born from its founders’ deeply personal journey as CHLA parents. They endured six agonizing months in the hospital, where their newborn fought for her fragile life. During their stay, they witnessed something else that was heartbreaking—too many babies alone in their cribs. Seeing the need for more volunteers to provide comfort, they created the Koala Corps with a singular mission:
Fund a full-time coordinator for the CHLA cuddler program. This role is essential to recruiting, training, and growing a network of volunteer cuddlers, ensuring that every baby who is alone has someone to hold them.
On average there are 130 babies every day under the age of 12 months old that are inpatients at CHLA. Many of them are sick and in pain and alone in their cribs with no one to hold them. Nurses can only do so much. Not all parents and caregivers can be bedside all of the time. And some have no caregivers at all.
Our Story
My husband and I started the Koala Corps because of our personal experience at Children’s Hospital of LA. Our second daughter Shae was born with a rare genetic syndrome called FBXO11. She has cognitive disabilities and has had surgeries from head to toe. We spent her first six months at CHLA where she fought for her life. All Shae wanted was to be held to be comforted and to soothe her. We all know that all babies need to be held and especially when they are in pain. While we were there for various reasons, we saw other babies in their cribs without someone at their bedside to hold them. It broke our hearts to see other babies with the same needs and not getting held. And sadly we were not permitted to hold them. I told myself I would come back and hold those babies that were alone. However, I found that after all we went through, and continued to, I was not mentally and emotionally capable of handling going back into that situation because of all the trauma we had experienced with Shae.
We still wanted to help. There was already a cuddler program in place but there were so few volunteers available compared to the need. On average there are an upward of 130 infants under the age of 12 months that are inpatients every day at CHLA. At the time there were about 8 cuddlers trained and that means maybe a couple were available during the week. The problem was there was no designated person to run the program which takes a lot more time and expertise than one would think. The cuddler program was under the umbrella of several volunteer programs at once but they were spread too thin to focus on the program. Our purpose has been to raise money to pay the salary of a full-time employee whose sole purpose is to build and run the program so there is never a shortage of arms to hold these precious little babies. And it’s working! We have raised enough money for the first three years and now we are on a mission to have the next three funded. There are currently 36 volunteers and several more getting trained. These little ones can’t tell you how much they need to be held. We want to speak for them. Please join with us in providing for this crucial need.
Eligible Babies To Be Held
Available Cuddlers
2009: 8
2024: 30
2026: 60
Testimonials
