McGrath Elementary School sixth graders from Santa Clarita donated more than 150 stuffed animals to young patients in the emergency room and dementia patients at the Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills.

The plush toys are given to young patients to comfort them, and also to patients suffering dementia, whose eyes sparkle as they cuddle the soft stuffed animals, officials said.

“We value compassionate care, when a child comes in or an older person with dementia, they’re so vulnerable,” said Patricia Aidem, spokeswoman for Providence Holy Cross Medical Center. “Our volunteer, Kay Radford has a program where she passes out these animals to patients. She finds older lady who used to have a cat and gives her a cat stuffed animal. It’s really just to comfort them.”

Photo courtesy of Patricia Aidem.

Twelve-year-old Lauren Mendoza-Reyes and two other students from McGrath Elementary delivered the stuffed animals to patients personally.

“I was actually really excited when I found out that we were doing this project,” Lauren said. “I heard about other schools doing this before and every year my school does a community outreach project.”

Lauren’s mom, Deann Reyes, works at the Providence Holy Cross Medical Center and accompanied her daughter to donate the Beanie Babies and other small stuffed animals.

“I really liked this because it teaches the kids to give back and to help others and gives them an idea of how much it affects those patients,” Reyes said. “They can see first hand what it means to those patients.”

Two children entered the trauma unit on the particular day that the student went to donate the stuffed animals, Reyes said. The students were able to give them some comfort.

“The stuffed animals help parents keep kids calm and they distract the kids so they’re not so scared,” Reyes said. “It’s good to give back to your community because there’s always something to help out with.”