Hey, Stana fans!!! As you likely know, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles is a place that is near and dear to Stana’s heart. We know how important the well-being of the children who receive treatment at CHLA is to Stana, so we’d love to do something to help make life a little easier for them.

CHLA has a great program called Literally Healing. This program works to collect donations of new books and gift cards to places like Amazon.com to help keep their fantastic reading room and mobile book cart stocked with plenty of books for the patients at CHLA to read and enjoy. These kids have to endure a lot of really dark moments and are facing some incredibly tough odds. The books in the reading room and on the book cart can help them deal with some scary situations, understand what’s happening to them, or just put a smile on their faces when they need it most.

Considering how many programs at CHLA need funds and attention to keep the hospital on the forefront of medicine and technology, Literally Healing depends heavily on donations from private individuals and various organizations to sustain themselves and keep growing. The STR team heard about this program and its need for such support, and decided to take action.

So, in the summer of 2013, STR held its inaugural fundraiser to generate money to support Literally Healing. We set our initial goal at $200, figuring that was reasonable to raise within 5 weeks. We announced the fundraiser on a our show one night at the beginning of August at around 9:20pm (ET). Imagine our absolute shock when we blew past our $200 goal and had raised $500 by 11pm!!! The generosity of our STR community was astounding and just continued to blow our minds over the next few weeks. When the STR team gathered in LA at the end of September, we were able to visit the Literally Healing library at CHLA and present the LH team with a check for $2500!!! Needless to say, Claire and Cynthia, who run the program, were completely shocked and so, so grateful to the STR community. They informed us that the money would be used not only to buy new books but also to have several more of their “Book Moooobiles” (mobile book carts that look like cows) made. The Book Moobiles are used to bring books to patients who are unable to get out of bed and make the trip to the reading room.

Once we saw how much the fundraiser meant to Literally Healing, we knew we had to do it again. So, in the summer of 2014, STR ran our second fundraiser to support Literally Healing. We were so pleased that we raised $2500 in cash, gift cards, and brand-new books to donate to Literally Healing!!! Once again, the STR community came together for this wonderful cause and made a huge difference in the lives of so many patients at CHLA.

So far, the STR community has raised $5,000 dollars in books, gift cards, and cash to support Literally Healing. We fully intend to hold our 3rd fundraiser for Literally Healing in the near future. Stay tuned for more news, friends!!!