Chad and Lisa Borodychuk of DeWitt have been making these pillows for years.
"It's exciting for them," says Lisa.
Lisa started making the pillows for her daughter, who has Alexandra disease leukodystrophy. When a nurse saw the pillows she said the kids in the hospital would love them, so Lisa began making more.
"The children get the pillows in the hospital and they're fun because they're children's patterns," explains Chad Borodychuk. "It brings a smile to the child's face who's dealing with something very challenging. And obviously it helps them be more comfortable, but it also brings a smile to the parents' face because they get to see their children get excited about something while they're at the hospital."
Since then, the Borodychuk's have made thousands of the pillows for 13 hospitals across Michigan, and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Just over 900 of which were made at Lansing Community College on Saturday.
But LCC's Anne Heutsche says volunteers were geared up for more:
"They wanted to do more and we only had 908 pillow forms! So had I think we had another thousand, we would have had two thousand pillows instead of close to a thousand."
Mary Staples has worked in children's intensive care units and has seen kids love the pillows first hand:
"Their eyes light up, they hug it, it's like they're not in the hospital for a few seconds," Staples smiles.
She describes the pillows as home for the kids.
Which is why it means so much for the Borodychuk's for the community to come together to make the pillows.
"Having the community come together and help us will get us ahead so that we can keep on donating the pillows to the hospital," says Lisa.
