Payload of Play-Doh donated to hospitalized youth by Washington City teen

ST. GEORGE — Intermountain Cancer Center in St. George received a payload of Play-Doh from a Washington City teenager for the recent holidays. The toys will be distributed as a stress reliever to several departments in the hospital where children are treated.

Person holding green yellow and purple Play-doh, location unknown, July 30, 2021 | Photo by Olga Sergeeva via Scopio, St. George News

After watching a television series on BYU-TV titled “Random Acts,” Crimson Cliffs Middle School tenth-grader Ana Carnavale was inspired by the giving spirit. So she started a toy drive collecting Beanie Boos to distribute to children in the hospital. The second year she named her fundraiser Hope Buddies, but after her third year the cost of the miniature stuffed animals increased significantly. So, for her fourth year, she switched to Play-Doh.

“I tried contacting the company (making the stuffed animals) hoping to get a discount but never got any response,” she said.

Intermountain Cancer Center volunteer services coordinator Kim Lyons told St. George News that her office accepts donations from many people in the community, one of the most giving in the Intermountain Healthcare community. She is inspired by the age differences in the donors as she thanks them for their time, saying many are teens like Carnavale.

“We had two little boys, around 10 years old, who won a Nintendo Switch,” she said while tearing up. “And these boys, they didn’t want to keep it. So their parents brought them in, that’s just really cool to me.”

When not fundraising for hospitalized children during the holidays, Carnavale said she likes theatre, music, skating and Washington County 4-H activities — she’s even met the Governor of Utah. Her mother, Jennae, is proud of the bond Ana is forming with her little brother and sister.

“It’s fun to see them working together,” she said. “She lets them help with the shopping.”

Donations have mostly been raised through word of mouth, on their personal social media pages, an Amazon wishlist, or from neighbors dropping off gifts at the doorstep because they knew Ana was going to the hospital from her previous toy drives, her mother said.

Ana explained that her drive to continue for four years was fueled when, in a previous year, she had a friend in the hospital receive one of the Beanie Boos she had donated.

“Seeing somebody get it, and seeing how happy it made them makes you want to keep doing it,” she said. “Knowing that there is more than one person out there getting them, and that it is hard in the hospital, now they will have something to make it just a little bit better.”

Although Lyons herself does not hand deliver the donations to patients, she works closely with the donors who drop them off, many of them hand-made.

“I get to see the look on their faces, I get a kick out of that,” she said. “And if they are kids, I get to see their parents and they are always so proud.”

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