The Texas Children’s Creative and Therapeutic Arts Program organized its first “Be Like Molly Mae” Camp: Hope for the Holidays, Dec. 6-10, with activities all week, culminating in a musical production featuring patient actors and patient-made decorations.
This donor-funded camp provided patients with opportunities to interact with the program’s music therapy, art therapy and media production teams to create the visuals and perform in the musical focused on hope for the holidays. Donors Jill and Andy LeBlanc have provided Texas Children’s with many gracious donations in honor of their daughter, Molly Mae, who benefited greatly from the Child Life program. They have made donations to music therapy, created a nursing scholarship, and are now funding this camp so patients can experience the same Creative Arts therapies Molly Mae did, and feel the happiness, hope and love she sought to spread to everyone at Texas Children’s.
Patients experience many benefits from participating in Art Therapy, Music Therapy, and Media Production all year long in addition to events like the camp, including:
- Relaxation, pain management and coping skills for adjusting to illness/hospitalization
- Opportunities for creativity and verbal, non-verbal and emotional expression
- Mood improvement
- Practicing fine and gross motor skills through various activities
- Confidence and resilience building
- Increased social interaction with peers
- Healthy problem-solving and adaptive skills
- Fostering of peer support and a sense of community in the medical environment
- Improvement of cognitive and sensory-motor functions
- Legacy-building and memory-making opportunities
Leading up to the premiere performance
Camp week was full of music, art, and media activities for all patients, with options for them to come to the Child Life Zone and participate, or tune in on ZTV and complete activities in their rooms. Patients collaborated with the music therapy, art therapy and media teams to write songs, make characters and decorations using clay, paint and other materials, and write the script for the show. Music therapists, an art therapist, and media producers also visited patients in their rooms throughout the week to provide individualized assistance and support.
Even the smallest patients and their families were involved! NICU patients and infants in Legacy Tower’s heart center made footprint crafts that were used as decorations during the show.
And, action
Patients participated in a dress rehearsal on December 9, and the final performance on December 10. The musical centered around Heath Wave, a weatherman who used his “weather re-arranger” to create a heat wave in Texas because he didn’t grow up celebrating the holidays, and didn’t understand what could be so special about them, including snow! The rest of the characters worked together to convince Heath to let them have a snowy day for the holidays by telling him all about their holiday traditions, what they love about this time of year and the importance of hope and joy.
More about Molly Mae and the camp in her namesake
Molly was diagnosed with Autosomal Recessive Polycystic Kidney Disease prior to her birth. She battled kidney and liver disease valiantly for four years, four months, and 24 days. Molly was a smart, funny and loving little girl who made friends everywhere she went. She loved her dog, Dobby, her cousins, her Texas Children’s family, and most of all, her mom and dad. Molly was a beloved fixture at the hospital. The doctors, nurses and clinical support staff were her best buddies and biggest supporters. Molly will forever be remembered as a bright light and an example of hope and love.
When asked about the inspiration for “Be Like Molly Mae” Camp, music therapist Marial Biard explained, “building on hope and love, the Creative and Therapeutic Arts Program team launched the camp, deciding that it would be best to combine all three modalities − music therapy, art therapy, and media − into one final product (the musical) to show how all three creative mediums work well together and provide many diverse opportunities for patients to participate in.”
Future plans include organizing this camp at least once a year to continue honoring Molly’s legacy and promote Hope for the Holidays. The team plans to make camp even more accessible to patients by expanding it to other units and providing Spanish translations.
If you wish to watch some of the performance, you can find it here.
