Children’s Foundation Launches National Campaign

Rainfall prevented the symbolic launch Wednesday of an 85-foot hot air balloon advertising the Journey of Hope, a 15-city campaign meant to raise awareness and money for the Starlight Children’s Foundation.

But it didn’t matter. The children at UCLA Medical Center were more interested in the human-sized, furry, multicolored finches accompanying the campaign that visited them at the hospital.

“Ooh, birdies,” said a delighted Dara Elyse Helfant, 2, as she took turns hugging each of the three creatures.

“They had to anesthetize her this morning,” said her mother, Judi Helfant, 42, of Santa Monica. “She’s just waking up and this is a big dream for her.”

The finches are the mascots of ViewSonic, a Walnut, Calif., company specializing in computer monitors and the sponsor of the Journey of Hope campaign. The corporation presented a $150,000 check, the first installment of a $400,000 total commitment, to the Starlight Children’s Foundation during ceremonies Tuesday on the UCLA campus.

ViewSonic President James Chu said the campaign is his company’s effort to become a “good corporate citizen.” It has also pulled in other corporate sponsors, including PC magazine, Forbes, Computer Shopper and Yahoo, he said.

Starlight, which was founded in 1983, grants wishes and provides diversionary activities for children who are critically, chronically or terminally ill. Over the years, it has set up Starlight rooms in children’s hospital wards that offer big-screen TVs, video games and crafts.

Helfant said her daughter, diagnosed with neurofibromatosis, a genetic disease associated with neural abnormalities, recently spent a week confined to her hospital room and attached to monitors. Rooms like those the foundation provides give children like Dara “a different sense of reality,” Helfant said.