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Art table donated to Children’s Hospital
Art table donated to Children's Hospital
WAUWATOSA (WITI) -- For kids and their families battling cancer or other serious diseases, getting treatment means spending lots of time in the hospital. Now, a local hotel is helping to make that stay feel a bit more like home.
The piece inspires hope, healing and love. On Thursday, the Pfister Hotel donated a decorative end table to the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin. 2-inch tiles with pictures and quotes make up part of the permanent fixture at the Hematology, Oncology and Transplant (HOT) Unit.
“The Hope Table was a creation and a labor of love by many people,” said Linda Price Topp, the hotel’s Sales and Marketing Director.
Price Topp spearheaded the idea of the Hope Table after her 13-year-old daughter, Kathleen, was diagnosed with Lymphoma last year. The HOT Unit became their second home for 40 days.
“When we were here, we drew strength from the other families and from watching other kids fight this big fight. So we just want to leave a little something behind for those families to draw strength from,” said Price Topp.
Cookie, as the family calls her, is recovering well from the bone marrow transplant.
To help others like her, the Topp family and Pfister Hotel have since raised money for blood cancer research. The table is a reflection of those efforts.
“It really brings a warm, healing environment to the unit. That's what’s just so important, when kids are here, just to make it normal,” said Lisa Krueger, the Patient Care Manager of the HOT Unit.
With legs that resemble cancer ribbons and tiles 144 people, including Cookie, individually painted, the hope here is to give kids and their families the same support they once received.
“One has just a cross on it that says, ‘Stay strong.’ And the other one that has a heart that says ‘love’ on it,” said Kathleen “Cookie” Topp.
The end table was a team effort by the Pfister Hotel. Its own carpenter, Robin Campbell, designed and built it, while the hotel's artist-in-residence drew the word "hope" on the table top.