February 4, 2021

A 7-Year-Old’s Art Raises Thousands of Dollars in Donations for Doctors and Nurses

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The 7-year-old whose homemade bracelets raised $30,000 and counting for a hospital has been on a roll. Her fundraising is growing worldwide. While all hospitals should be fully funded without any kindhearted kid’s efforts, in the world as it is and misaligned structures as they stand, this really is a moving story. Leave it to a second grader’s artistic thinking to shore up adults’ and institutions’ insufficiencies. Join me, one and all, near and far, Rechargers and retweeters, for a round of raised apple juice in honor of 7-year-old Hayley in Chicago.

Proceeds from her bracelets, created from colorful rubber bands, are supplying a children’s hospital with PPE and supporting telehealth services, diagnostic test development, and coronavirus research. She’s teaching bracelet making to friends over Zoom and FaceTime. The bracelets, she says in a video with her mom at her side, “represent hope during a really hard time.”

If you have childhood art of your own stashed away in drawers or cabinets, or know a kid whose art never sees the light of media attention, drop a line to recharge@motherjones.com if you’d like it shared in a future Recharge.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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