Hospital Wishes Come True : Padrinos Give Lots of Love to Young Patients

Padrino means godfather in Italian and Spanish.

To the children at Valley Childrens Hospital, the word means love.

The Padrinos are a group of men who make it their business to see to it that wishes come true for patients at the hospital through their “heart’s desire” program.

Organized last September, the Padrinos work with hospital officials and the parents of the patients to make hospital stays as comfortable as possible.

“We didn’t want to be just another fund-raising group,” Guy Johnson, president of the Padrinos, said. “Anyone can raise and give money. We want to give love.”

He said the idea was to form one-on-one relationships with the young patients and their families.

“We want to add a little fun to their lives at a time when life can be most stressful,” Johnson said.

Through the “heart’s desire” program, the Padrinos try to fulfill almost any wish a hospitalized child might have.

“We’re not talking about needs, we’re talking about desires,” Johnson said.

“We are not into providing big, cross-country trips or giving expensive, flashy gifts. We operate on a smaller scale and that way we can help more of the children.”

An example of the wishes the Padrinos made happen is a family portrait for a patient’s family.

“The family wanted a professional photograph taken with their child before he began chemotherapy and began to lose his hair,” Johnson said. “A member of our group who is a professional photographer took the pictures and gave portraits to the parents and both sets of grandparents.”

Another young leukemia patient, a 6-year-old boy, wanted to toss a football with Fresno State University quarterback Kevin Sweeney.

After being contacted by the Padrinos, not only did Sweeney show up at the hospital with a “Nerf” football to play catch with the boy, his father, Fresno State football coach Jim Sweeney, came along armed with posters and team autographs for the youth.

“A lot of the wishes are simple and relatively inexpensive to fulfill,” Johnson said. “We had a boy who loved trucks, so we got a trucker to pull his 18-wheeler up to the curb outside the hospital and the boy was able to sit in the driver’s seat and honk the horn. It made his day and ours.”

The Padrinos have provided airplane, motorcycle and horseback rides for children in the hospital as well as one-day trips to the coast for a couple of children who had never seen the ocean.

It costs $100 in annual dues to become a member of the Padrinos. The group also holds fund-raising events throughout the year to provide the funds to fill some of the children’s wishes.

Not all the Padrinos’ activities involve wishes.

“Sometimes we pick up kids at home and take them to the hospital for treatments and then take them to a movie and maybe for ice cream,” Johnson said. “We try to show the children that they are not alone in their sickness and that a lot of people love them and are rooting for them.”