Good Night Lights!

There has been a growing movement to bring cheer to sick kids at hospitals.  Not just during the Christmas season, but all year round.

It’s called Good Night Lights.

Picture this.  At 8:30 every night, the city stops and blinks its lights for a minute to say goodnight to the sick kids in childrens’ hospitals. The kids are given flash lights to blink back.  Restaurants and boats participate.  Skyscrapers and police cruisers.  They all blink their lights for a minute to say goodnight.

A few months ago I shared with you the story of the University of Iowa Hawkeyes, how between the 1st and second quarter of their football game, the fans all stand and turn around and wave to the kids in the UI Children’s Hospital.  It’s amazing.  You would think a small thing like that wouldn’t be such a big deal, but the kids LOVE IT.  Their parents LOVE it. Even the staff LOVES it.  Why you may ask?  Hospitals aren’t great places for kids.  They are there because they are sick and sore.  There is very little to look forward to.  This is something special.

That’s just during football season, though.  How many games?  Eight?

Imagine having one thing to look forward to every night, a way to cap off the day and welcome the evening?  And it’s super easy.

I first heard about Providence, Rhode Island, and their Good Night Lights Program on the radio, and I looked it up. Boats and hotels and even restaurants blink their lights to the kids that are sick at the Hasbro Children’s Hospital. You can read about it here.

It has become so popular that it has spread to Orlando, where the city blinks its lights to the Arnold Palmer Children’s hospital.  You can read about that too, right here.

It’s also a thing at Beaumont Children’s Hospital in Detroit.

I want to do this for Boston!

But Boston has specific problems that need to be overcome.  It has a number of childrens’ hospitals.  There’s Tuft’s Floating Hospital.  There’s Mass General Hospital for Children and there’s Boston Children’s Hospital.

pediatric hospitals boston map

How do we triangulate efforts to make this work?

How spectacular would this be if we COULD make this work?

Let’s brainstorm this.

Please leave me a message if you have ideas!