Nintendo to increase funding for Starlight Starbright

Here’s a bit of warm and fuzzy, good news-y stuff for you guys today. After helping brighten the lives of sick children in Australia some time ago, this time they’re helping out kids in Los Angeles. Nintendo of America, longtime manufacturers of “Fun Centers” for the Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation, is donating the 5,000th Fun Center to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

The Fun Center includes a Sharp Aquos liquid crystal flat-screen monitor, a DVD player, and a Nintendo GameCube system.

Fun Centers, by the way, were developed more than a decade ago as a tool hospitals can use to help curb the anxiety and weariness that hospitalized children face during extended stays. As “Patch” Adams has shown, it’s not all about plugs and needles, sometimes it’s about caring. To date, more than 1,000 hospitals throughout North America have received one or more Fun Center units since Nintendo started the program.

If you were stuck in a smelly room in weird hospital robes, getting probes of all kinds stuck into you, while all your friends are enjoying themselves in the playground outside, you’d love to have something to help pass the time right?

Don James, Executive Vice President, Operations of Nintendo had this to say: “It is fitting that Starlight Starbright’s 5,000th Fun Center is a gift from Nintendo; we wouldn’t have it any other way, I’m also pleased to announce that we will begin shipping new-and-improved Fun Centers to hospitals starting in summer 2007.”

James also promises that Nintendo will increase its funding to Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation. He also notes that the ease to of rolling the Fun Centers around the hospital make the Fun Centers excellent for numerous situations that hospital-bound children could face like anticipating surgery, long outpatient clinic treatments, waiting in the emergency room, or even fighting loneliness after visiting hours have ended.

Caregivers report that Fun Center use may even result in a reduced need for pain medication. The new Fun Centers that James mentioned will feature a Wii instead of a GameCube. Hunter “Patch” Adams will definitely love this bit of news.

Here’s a bit of warm and fuzzy, good news-y stuff for you guys today. After helping brighten the lives of sick children in Australia some time ago, this time they’re helping out kids in Los Angeles. Nintendo of America, longtime manufacturers of “Fun Centers” for the Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation, is donating the 5,000th Fun Center to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

The Fun Center includes a Sharp Aquos liquid crystal flat-screen monitor, a DVD player, and a Nintendo GameCube system.

Fun Centers, by the way, were developed more than a decade ago as a tool hospitals can use to help curb the anxiety and weariness that hospitalized children face during extended stays. As “Patch” Adams has shown, it’s not all about plugs and needles, sometimes it’s about caring. To date, more than 1,000 hospitals throughout North America have received one or more Fun Center units since Nintendo started the program.

If you were stuck in a smelly room in weird hospital robes, getting probes of all kinds stuck into you, while all your friends are enjoying themselves in the playground outside, you’d love to have something to help pass the time right?

Don James, Executive Vice President, Operations of Nintendo had this to say: “It is fitting that Starlight Starbright’s 5,000th Fun Center is a gift from Nintendo; we wouldn’t have it any other way, I’m also pleased to announce that we will begin shipping new-and-improved Fun Centers to hospitals starting in summer 2007.”

James also promises that Nintendo will increase its funding to Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation. He also notes that the ease to of rolling the Fun Centers around the hospital make the Fun Centers excellent for numerous situations that hospital-bound children could face like anticipating surgery, long outpatient clinic treatments, waiting in the emergency room, or even fighting loneliness after visiting hours have ended.

Caregivers report that Fun Center use may even result in a reduced need for pain medication. The new Fun Centers that James mentioned will feature a Wii instead of a GameCube. Hunter “Patch” Adams will definitely love this bit of news.