Spartan Buddies Bring Athletes, Children Together
6/18/2009 12:00:00 AM | General
June 18, 2009
East Lansing, Mich. - Fifteen student-athletes received training this week to join the Spartan Buddies program - an MSU athletics outreach that brings them to Sparrow Hospital to visit children in the pediatric ward. Started in 2005, the Spartan Buddies program has been a positive ongoing relationship between the athletics department and Sparrow Hospital.
Listen to interviews with three of the newest Spartan Buddies:
TrevorMichael Kirk
All student-athlete volunteers have to go through an official training given by the hospital before visiting regularly with the pediatric patients and their families. They learn the rules and regulations of the hospital (such as handwashing before & after entering rooms, what different colored signs on doors mean, different code levels, etc.) and how to respect patients' rights.
Once the training is completed, they get an official Volunteer badge and can go visit pediatric patients any time. Sometime the hospital will call and let the athletics department know if a new child has come in that would appreciate visitors. However, this is a program primarily built on the initiative of the student-athlete volunteers - they can visit as much as they like or their schedule allows, and can spend time with the children playing games, doing crafts, or just visiting with the patients and their families in the wards.
Feedback from this program has been overwhelmingly positive - the families and children enjoy visiting with the student-athletes, and it often makes a young child's day to meet some of the athletes they only read about or see on television.
In the most recent training session, 15 student-athletes from the hockey, football, volleyball, and track and field programs. This brings the total number of student-athletes for the 2009-10 school year to 25 volunteers, with more expected to receive training once the fall semester begins. The end of an athletic career rarely spells the end of the visits, however - many student-athletes have continued visiting the chronically ill children that they have developed relationships with after their playing days at Michigan State are done.
The Spartan Buddies program began in 2005, the brainchild of former hockey player (and current Anaheim Duck) Drew Miller, an East Lansing native.