Casey Cares kicked off its #CaseyCaresBiggestPJParty at Catonsville Elementary and had a surprise guest to get everyone pumped up --- Baltimore Ravens' mascot Poe!
In the middle of a school assembly in which the kids were learning about a pajama drive they are going to run for critically ill kids at Casey Cares, Poe jumped out from behind a curtain and surprised the students. Poe was in the spirit of the day, wearing pajamas (purple ones, of course).
What made the day very special is that one of our Casey Cares kids, second-grader Damari, who underwent a liver transplant when she was 9 months old, is a student at Catonsville Elementary. Damari actually had to have special tests done this morning at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and her mom, Anne, was grateful she could get Damari back to school in time for the assembly and the surprise.
Poe gave Damari a huge hug on stage, and Damari told her mom, "today was the best day of my life."
Casey Cares is all about lifting the spirits of children like Damari. We will serve close to 800 families with critically ill children this year, and one way we provide a little bit of comfort is by providing new pairs of pajamas to kids recovering from often-rigorous medical treatment. In 2016, we provided a record-high 7,028 new pairs of pajamas to critically ill kids.
For the second year in a row, we are inviting the public to our #CaseyCaresBiggestPJParty and we are asking that you share photos of yourself, your school, organization or workplace, wearing pajamas! That's all you have to do to join in the fun! Please use the hashtag #CaseyCaresBiggestPJParty.
Some of the folks who partied with us were tennis legend Pam Shriver, Baltimore Raven Michael Campanaro, Olympic champions Helen Maroulis, Kyle Snyder and Dorothy Hamill, Paralympic champion Brad Snyder, WMAR's Lynette Charles and Megan Knight, WJZ's Mark Viviano and MASN's Roch Kubatko! We even had Ford Performance's NASCAR team with Chris Buescher and his pit crew do a tire change in their PJs!
Here are pics from our party last year: http://caseycares.org/galleries/caseycaresbiggestpjparty
To learn more about how you can participate or how to get a pajama drive started, call us at 443-568-0064!
