ORANGE : Young Patients Reach Out to Help

Although 4-year-old Lourdes Arredondo is too young to comprehend the recent bombing in Oklahoma, she knew that somewhere far away a group of injured children would see her paintings and smile.

With a group of about 20 young cancer patients at Children’s Hospital of Orange County in Orange, Lourdes twirled her paintbrushes in bright fluorescent colors Thursday afternoon and created cheery scenes for the wounded children.

The paintings will be pasted onto a giant card and sent to the Childrens Hospital of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City.

“In some way or another those children in Oklahoma know that someone here in California is thinking of them,” said parent Lourdes Arredondo, who shares the same name with her daughter, who was busy dabbing yellow paint on a picture of a car.

The older patients saw television footage of the tragedy and expressed sympathy for the children.

“Adults have lived their lives, but these kids are barely starting,” said Carrie Almond, 15, who drew a painting with the message “Don’t worry the sun will shine again.”

“It shocks me more that the kids died,” she said. “They haven’t been on their first date or their first prom, it’s really sad.”

While others splashed color across white sheets of paper, 17-year-old Mario Mejia sat away from the group and carefully sketched Disney’s “Lion King.”

“I’m sorry that the children in Oklahoma had to go through something like that and I hope that things will get better and that they think positively,” said Mejia, who has cystic fibrosis and has been in and out of the hospital since the age of 9 months.

The children expressed concern for the young victims who had never been in a hospital before.

“It doesn’t matter that the little ones can’t write or draw, they can make little happy faces,” said Marguerite Beal, recreation therapy assistant. “What matters is that they all want to cheer up the children in Oklahoma and dwell on the positive things.”

For the older children, who knew exactly what happened on Wednesday, the chance to paint and cheer others up was a special opportunity to join in camaraderie with other youngsters in hospitals.

“Seeing the injured kids is really sad. All those little kids that were hurt. It’s probably the worst thing that could happen,” said Nichole Villa, 15.