Stepping Up: Ivory Ella building activity kits for hospitalized children

IVORY ELLA LLC employees, from left, Claritza Gonzales, Yasmin Ramos, Nelson Vasquez and Annette LaPietra, help build activity kits for national nonprofit Project Sunshine, which will be distributed to pediatric patients currently hospitalized. / COURTESY IVORY ELLA LLC
IVORY ELLA LLC employees, from left, Claritza Gonzales, Yasmin Ramos, Nelson Vasquez and Annette LaPietra, help build activity kits for national nonprofit Project Sunshine, which will be distributed to pediatric patients currently hospitalized. / COURTESY IVORY ELLA LLC

WESTERLY – Ivory Ella LLC has never been shy at wanting to help a cause it believes in.

The Westerly-based online retailer centers its mission in offering products to support various initiatives, including Save the Elephants, a nonprofit that helps wildlife conservation of elephants around the world.

So, when the COVID-19 pandemic began to take its devastating toll on the entire world, Ivory Ella realized there was a medical need of a different sort to help humanity cope with the crisis: Offering hospitalized children joy in a difficult setting. Because of the pandemic, hospitals have placed restrictions in order to limit the virus’ spread to where visitors are not allowed to see patients, including pediatric patients.

“The kids are usually isolated [in the hospitals],” Ivory Ella Co-Founder and CEO Richard Henne told Providence Business News. “Now, it’s even worse where they can’t even let their families come visit because of the risk of coronavirus.”

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Henne knew his company had the tools to help, and it quickly proceeded to build the “kits.”

The single-use activity kits, which include coloring books, stickers and markers, have different themes tailored to whatever the children’s interests are, Henne said. He also said Ivory Ella had had discussions about possibly collaborating on a new kit that would include educational materials about animals and the safari.

Ivory Ella employees, as a means to help national nonprofit Project Sunshine, constructed so far 600 Activity Kits for pediatric patients to be distributed to children’s hospitals across the country. The kits, so far, have been sent to Texas, Arizona, New Jersey and New York, according to the company, and Ivory Ella is currently building an additional 400 kits to be shipped.

Ivory Ella spokesperson Marcy Fitzpatrick said the kits have been shipped to hospitals based on their highest demand for the kits. Hasbro Children’s Hospital is on Project Sunshine’s list of hospitals to serve and Ivory Ella hopes the next batch will reach that hospital, Fitzpatrick said.

Henne said a close friend recommended that Ivory Ella help out Project Sunshine, a nonprofit that works with medical centers to design educational programs to help pediatric patients while in the hospital, build the activity kits as there was a high demand for them. Plus, Henne said, Project Sunshine lost the ability to have some corporate sponsors help build the kits because of the shutdowns prompted by the pandemic.

“I realized that we had this operation center and this amazing staff that we need to keep employed and need to keep busy,” Henne said. It just made so much sense to marry the two together and have our employees work for a cause that they can get behind and really feel happy about, building these kits for the children in our operations center and ship them to the hospitals.”

Henne said about five core employees at Ivory Ella’s fulfillment center are helping build the kits and the company would involve additional employees to build more kits as donations and demand for the kits increase.

Additionally, Ivory Ella has been selling “HOPE” T-shirts during the health crisis and all net proceeds will support Project Sunshine. The company has sold about 1,500 T-shirts, raising approximately $7,000, for the nonprofit.

“Despite it being a tough environment for everyone right now, it actually energizes and stirs up the passion in our customers to [help] make a difference,” Henne said.”

(CORRECTS amount donated from HOPE T-shirts.)

Providence Business News is spotlighting nonprofits, companies and workers stepping up to challenges presented by the spread of the new coronavirus.

James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter at @James_Bessette.

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