{"id":31739,"date":"2019-09-09T12:33:43","date_gmt":"2019-09-09T16:33:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=31739"},"modified":"2024-07-02T17:12:19","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T17:12:19","slug":"students-visit-children-hospitals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=31739","title":{"rendered":"Students play dress-up to bring joy to hospitalized children"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"excerpt\"><em>Carolina students dress as their favorite animated movie characters to bring joy to children in hospitals and social service institutions.<\/em><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"media-container\">\n<div class=\"media\" data-min-viewport=\"960\">\n<div class=\"image-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2024\/07\/image1.jpg\" alt=\"Student dressed as Disney's Elsa talks with a little girl\" width=\"1042\" height=\"586\" data-wp-editing=\"1\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"content-wrapper\">\n<aside class=\"sticky-on-scroll\" role=\"complementary\">\n<div class=\"printfriendly pf-alignleft\"><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<div class=\"content\">\n<div class=\"has-content-area\" title=\"\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.unc.edu\/discover\/students-dress-as-princesses-and-superheroes-to-visit-medically-vulnerable-kids\/\" data-title=\"Students dress as princesses and superheroes to visit medically vulnerable kids\">\n<div class=\"pf-content\">\n<p>If you\u2019ve ever wanted to dress up as your favorite superhero or fairy tale character but thought, \u201cI\u2019m too old for that,\u201d one student organization at Carolina might change your mind.<\/p>\n<p>Members of UNC-Chapel Hill\u2019s chapter of <a href=\"https:\/\/heellife.unc.edu\/organization\/amomentofmagicuncch\">A Moment of Magic<\/a> regularly transform into princesses or fairies, knights or comic book heroes to bring joy to a child in need. The group is part of a national non-profit that provides opportunities for college students to volunteer at children\u2019s hospitals and social service institutions.<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t want to dress up? Student volunteers can still get involved by helping to coordinate book readings, arts and crafts, singalongs and other fun activities for medically vulnerable children.<\/p>\n<p>Julia Drahzal, a junior double majoring in psychology and exercise and sport science, launched Carolina\u2019s Moment of Magic chapter during her freshman year. Since then, the chapter has grown to more than 75 volunteers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the hardest part for families dealing with medical vulnerabilities is that from the parents\u2019 perspective, they don\u2019t get to sit back and watch their kids be kids,\u201d Drahzal said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had families tell us, \u2018This is the first time I\u2019ve seen my kid smile all week.\u2019 For us to be able to provide happy memories like that, I think it\u2019s really special.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The visits can make an immediate impact on the kids, as well, whether they\u2019re struggling with a cancer diagnosis or living with a physical or mental disability.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy favorite moment was there was a little girl who requested my character,\u201d said Drahzal, who didn\u2019t want to spoil the magic by revealing which popular princess she dresses as. \u201cShe was wearing a shirt with my character\u2019s face on it, and she had bedsheets with my character on them, and when I walked in her jaw just dropped. When I left, she said, \u2018You\u2019re my favorite princess, and this is my favorite day.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So, while the organization is about encouraging the kids, the student volunteers benefit just as much by giving back and bringing a little magic to someone\u2019s day.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe really hope people join and are excited about this as we are,\u201d Drahzal said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><em><span class=\"author-name\">By Emilie Poplett, University Communications<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Members of A Moment of Magic regularly transform into princesses or fairies, knights or comic book heroes to bring joy to a child in need. The group is part of a national non-profit that provides opportunities for college students to volunteer at children\u2019s hospitals and social service institutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":31740,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,29,33,21,34],"tags":[24,25,39],"class_list":["post-31739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-general","category-media-news","category-news","category-news-archive","tag-carolina","tag-college-of-arts-sciences","tag-unc-chapel-hill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31739"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49563,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31739\/revisions\/49563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}