This week’s Healing Potion will be putting the spotlight on the Starlight Children’s Foundation. Much like our earlier Healing Potion about the Gamer’s Outreach Foundation, Starlight is also looking to improve the lives of children in long-term hospital stays by giving them a recreation activity in gaming to help ease the stress of long term medical care. Every dollar donated to Starlight gives a child an hour of gameplay.
But gaming time isn’t the only thing Starlight is offering the kids. Donations also go towards colorful hospital gowns designed by the donors themselves, seasonal care packages (currently a Halloween package,) and access to a virtual reality headset with 20+ preloaded apps and games. This is a big deal, as according to a quote from Medical Director Joe Albeitz MD on the Starlight website, virtual reality can stand in as a replacement for general anesthesia for pain, and in some cases reduce the amount of medications a child might need to be on.
To take things further, Starlight is looking into customizing these VR headsets to reduce feelings of motion sickness, create a multiplayer game community for multiple kids in hospitals to play together, set up 360° cameras throughout the hospitals for virtual tours, allow hospitals to make custom content, and creating a companion app for the staff to guide the kids in their games or apps.
If you’d like to donate to the Starlight Children’s Foundation or just check out their website, click the link below!
