As soon as three Waukegan firefighters walked into Dylan Padilla’s room in the Emergency Department at Vista Medical Center East with a wrapped package, the youngster ripped off the wrappings, gave a broad smile and showed his mother what he got.
“I’m happy,” Dylan, 7, said. “This is really nice. I can’t wait for Christmas.”
“I really like this,” added his mother Kandeys Galves. It will be a nice Christmas.”
Dylan was one of four children receiving Christmas presents from a team of 20 Waukegan firefighters Wednesday at Vista Medical Center East in Waukegan on their annual pre-Christmas visit, bringing holiday cheer to youngsters being treated there.
For more than 30 years, Scott Vandenbroucke, a firefighter paramedic and a member of Waukegan Firefighters Local 473 who helped organize the event, said the Waukegan Fire Department goes Christmas shopping for children in the hospital at Christmastime.
“We want to bring a smile to the kids’ faces when they’re in the hospital around the holiday season,” Vandenbroucke said. “We’ll get footballs and puzzles, and other things they would like. We get things for older and younger kids, boys and girls.”
Sneider Marquez was lying in his bed in the emergency room with his mother, Gladys Torres, in a chair beside him when a trio of firefighters walked in with a new football and placed it in front of him.
“It’s very thoughtful,” Marquez said.
“It will help with the holiday,” Torres added.
With less and less children in the pediatric section of the hospital, Vandenbroucke said gifts not given Wednesday stay under the tree for children who are hospitalized in the future. Hospital staff gives them to youngsters through the new year as long as they last.
He said the gifts are purchased with money from their union dues and donations made by members of fire department management. The firefighters do the wrapping. No taxpayer dollars are used.
Children like Dylan and Marquez are not the only ones who get a warm feeling out of the event. Waukegan Fire Department Capt. Marco Vazquez said he is in his 25th year with the department, and has made every Christmastime trip to the hospital.
Vazquez said he remembers a time he walked into a young girl’s hospital room — she was 3 or 4 — and before he or his colleagues could give her her gift or anything else, the youngster was quickly out of her bed.
“She ran up to me and gave me a hug,” Vazquez said. “She was just happy to see us. We gave her her gift and she was so happy. This is what Christmas is about. It feels good to bring some joy to these kids who are in the hospital on Christmas.”
Along with toys, books and games for the children, Vandenbroucke said this year there is a focus on the needs of babies and their parents who are in the maternity ward starting their family or adding to it. The firefighters bought the materials for nine newborn kits and assembled them.
Yvette Malicay, Vista’s patient care manager for its New Family Center, said the kits include a digital thermometer, a swaddle, a mirror for a car seat so a parent can keep eyes both on the road and the child, a teething ring, a pacifier and a journal.
“A lot of our patients are underserved,” Malicay said. “These kits will really help them in their first year with their new child. They won’t have to deal with finding the resources and doing research about them. They can concentrate on being moms and dads.”
