You can help Canberrans like Elise and Marcel Little with just a $5 donation to Canberra Hospital Foundation’s Give Me Five (GM5) appeal.

Since 2012, community members have donated $1.2 million through the appeal.

The funds go towards specialty equipment, therapeutic programs and more for sick children in Centenary Hospital for Women and Children at Canberra Hospital.

The campaign highlights how distraction can effectively decrease pain and anxiety in children and young people.

The wish list for this year extends to items supporting parents and children accessing Canberra Health Services’ Neurodiversity Care Plan and the Palliative Care Program.

Elise said that when she was pregnant with Marcel, she suffered a placental abruption on Christmas Eve in 2023. Marcel was born unresponsive.

After being resuscitated, he was placed on life support in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

“An MRI at day four showed that he had brain damage everywhere (due to a lack of oxygen to the brain),” Elise said.

When the family was asked if they wanted to take him off life support, they said no.

“We’re Christians and we didn’t want to make the decision,” Elise said.

She said the doctors said Marcel would likely have severe disability, most likely cerebral palsy, but now at 17 months, he has developed at a normal rate, albeit with some hearing loss.

GM5 funds were used to purchase a Polaroid camera so the family could capture the special moments. Play therapists also attended the family’s home, bringing music and paint; they created hand and footprints with Marcel and his two siblings and sang songs together.

Elise said the benefit of the fund was the support their family – husband Guy, and Marcel’s siblings, daughter Amelie and son Darcy –  received to cope with a “dark time”.

“It just makes a difference in a difficult time for the families,” Elise said.

“It’s such a beautiful thing to see the community come together and support people and their families.”

Paediatric palliative care nurse Kendell Smith said the little things provided to the families made the biggest difference.

“A Polaroid camera, paint for prints, a speaker for music… These aren’t just tools for our play therapists,” Ms Smith said. “They’re different ways to connect, to create memories, and to bring peace to families during what can be the hardest time of their lives.”

Canberra Hospital Foundation chief executive officer Helen Falla said GM5 not only helped raise funds but also educated the community on the benefits it provided to the children.

She said it was the biggest fundraiser for the dedicated paediatrics.

“All of the things we fund support anything from tonsilitis all the way through to a broken arm, to the all the more serious illnesses that sadly some children have a journey through,” Ms Falla said.

“We try to find things appropriate for the children to distract them from the clinical environment that they’re in.”

Donations can be made here: canberrahospitalfoundation.org.au/give-me-five

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