Room Circus Medical Clowning Oct 2013

Room Circus Medical Clowning
Oct 2013-Sept 2014 Fiscal Year
Annual Report
Room Circus founders Victoria Millard and Linda Severt with a sculpture of Anna Clise,
the founder of Seattle Children’s Hospital.
A Letter from the President of the Board
I am thrilled to share with you the highlights
of our first fiscal year, October 2013 through
September 2014. We started the year off
with an official name change and didn’t look
back! At the time of its initial planning stage
in 2012 and program inception in July 2013,
Room Circus was an outreach program of
Ear to the Ground, a non-profit founded in
2005, whose primary program was
theatrical clowning. Last November, we
dropped the name Ear to the Ground,
retained the non-profit status, somersaulted
from the stage and redirected our mission to
clowning for hospitalized children. Room
Circus Medical Clowning grew by leaps and
bounds!
Along with our visits to the Medical and
Surgical inpatient units, we’re now able to
visit the Rehabilitation Unit and the
outpatient waiting rooms. In addition,
we’re bringing joy and stress relief to the
infusion unit, where kids with cancer
receive chemotherapy.
Here’s to our healthy, vibrant and growing
community, founded on the core values of
Laughter, Play, Joy, Trust and
Imagination-- in celebration of all we’ve
accomplished, and to our continued
growth in 2014-15! We ask for your
continued support as we lay the
groundwork for future expansion!
With the help of our founding donors, we
Victoria Millard
started one day a week on the Medical and
Surgical units of Seattle Children’s Hospital.
We met our first year fundraising
“You helped me feel
goals, which included advance surplus
much less anxious
funds to add a second day at Seattle
beforeVictoria
my surgery!
Millard
Children’s Hospital at the beginning of
Thank you!”
our second fiscal year, October 2014!
– 14-year-old girl
“The Dad of a 12-year-old patient you and Princess
visited yesterday just came to my office to tell me
what a tremendous difference it made in his
daughter. I could see on his face how happy and
grateful he was for the experience. It was truly a
privilege to personally receive this feedback – hard
to hold back tears. All of you are truly
amazing! Have a wonderful day – after hearing
this, I know I will.”
Statistic of our work this year
This year, we spent 51 days in
Seattle Children's Hospital and
saw over 1800 patients, while
also lifting the spirits of parents,
doctors and nurses.
– Alison Garrison, Manager, Volunteer Services,
Seattle Children’s Hospital
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“You guys rock, totally!” – Mother
What We Accomplished This Year

Over 1800 kids and their families on
the Medical and Surgical Units of SCH
received visits from our clown doctors!

We recruited four fantastic board
members, an Advisory Council and
eight volunteers!

We hired and trained two new clowns,
masters of the art of sublime stupidity!

The board set strategic and
fundraising goals for the next three
years, a two-year budget and a detailed
fundraising plan.

We produced three successful
fundraising events, in the Fall, Winter
and Spring.


We received a sustaining grant from
4Culture of King County and a Civic
Partners Grant from the Seattle Office
of Arts and Culture.
We received $5000 from Seattle
Children’s Hospital in appreciation of
our great work!

We improved our infrastructure and
operations, working with a
consultant to choose the best
donation tracking software program,
and training our administrative
assistant on QuickBooks.

We received major publicity from
King 5 TV’s Evening Magazine. A
publicist from Children’s shadowed
the clowns for a day and wrote a
fabulous article. Both of these are
now featured on our website. We
also performed an in-studio segment
on KOMO 4 News.

We expanded our social media
presence—website improvements,
Face Book, Vimeo and Flickr.

We met our fundraising goal, which
allowed us to add a second day in the
hospital starting this October, to
include outpatient waiting rooms
and the Hematology-Oncology
outpatient infusion rooms!
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Our Goals for the Coming Fiscal Year

One of our primary goals this
coming year is to maintain a
financially sound position to
cover the present two-day-aweek program at Seattle
Children’s Hospital, while
laying the groundwork for
future expansion.

We’re repeating last year’s
popular and successful
fundraiser: The Music of
Laughter, in November. We will
also be producing several other
fundraising events throughout
the year.




We’re happy to be have just
recruited three new, dynamic
volunteers to help with our
expanded fundraising plan, and
one volunteer social media
coordinator!
We’ll recruit two new board
members, one for the office of
Secretary, and one attorney.
We’ll be formally evaluating the
program, using feedback from
parents and hospital staff.
We’ll offer employee humor and
play workshops to corporate
sponsors, and seek corporate
and foundation support.
Our Vision
Our vision is to help heal and transform lives
through laughter and play.
Our Mission
Our mission is to alleviate the stress and isolation of
hospitalized children and their families through the
healing art of Clown, and to promote laughter and
play as vital components of health and well-being.
Our Values
Play * Laughter * Joy * Trust * Imagination
Our Goals



“You just made a cynic laugh!”
– Father of a 12-year-old girl

To see medical clowning and the clinical
benefits of laughter integrated into health
care
To provide clown services to all children in
local hospitals, hospices, and care facilities
To offer clown, humor and play workshops to
help fund our hospital work
To educate the American public about the
Art of Clown
“My daughter’s’ time in the hospital was much less traumatic and troubling with your
kookiness to ease her through the difficulties she faced. We are grateful beyond words.”
– Father of a cancer patient
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Our Financials
A big thanks you to those
who donated their time
and talents!
Amy Stephson
Leah Rapalee
Ava Dubno
David Avery
Income by Percentage
Total: $69,354
Individuals
Earned Income
Grants
Businesses
Mai Norden
Laurie Hansman
9%
3%
1%
Forrest Kinney
Laura Love
87%
Lisa Koch
Molly Shannon
Christian Swenson
Billy Gleeson
Scott Abernethy
Kate Kraay
Carol Thompson
Jay Myers
Gavin Reub
Expenses by Percentage
Total: $42,037
Programming
Fundraising
Administrative
Tom Spangenburg
27%
Jane Nichols
Adrienne Mendoza
63%
Justin Huertas
10%
Margaret Sekijima
Janet Rayor
Dvorah Kost
John Curry
Luz Gaxiola
Savannah Baltazar Scofield, Kathleen Tracy, Columbia City Community Chorus
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Board of Directors
Victoria Millard – President
Michael de Groot – Vice President
Michel Gaultier – Treasurer
James Thompson – Secretary
Staff
Victoria Millard – Executive Director
Linda Severt – Program Manager
Chris Scofield – Office Manager
Medical Clowns
Linda Severt, aka Dr. Hamsterfuzz
Keith Hitchcock, aka Dr. Voila
Jeff Blank, aka Dr. Truman B. Awesome
Jane Nichols, aka Dr. Princess Smarty Pants
Victoria Millard, aka Dr. La Foo
Advisory Council
Michael Christenson
Leland Hartwell, PhD
David Avery, M.D.
Anne Phalen, M.D.
Our Colleagues at
Seattle Children’s
Hospital
Our Retiring
Board
Members
Lynel Westby
Alison Garrison
Debbie Kruse
Lina Lewis
The Childlife Dept.
Laurie Heidorn
Jan Hillson
John Poole
Laura-Beth
Straight
Magical things happen all the time
while we’re working in the hospital, but
every now and then, something really
special happens and we like to
document it. Here is a story from this
past year.
The Drainage Dance Song
By Dr. Hamsterfuzz
Dr. Truman B. Awesome and I were
making our rounds when a doctor
asked us if we could see her patient in a
private kidney dialysis room. “Of
course!” we said.
The 3-year-old girl was standing on top
of the examining table with tubes
coming out the sides of her body.
Parents and staff were trying to get her
to move around so that a build-up of
fluid would drain down the tubes. I
looked at Dr. Awesome and said, "You
know the Drainage Dance Song, don’t
you?" He answered with a resounding,
"Yes!" and reached for his percussive
shaker. We made up a fast, rockin’
song on the spot, complete with shaker
solo. "You hop on your feet to the
rhythm and the beat, then you dance
all around ‘til the fluid runs down!"
Music flowed out of the clowns, and
the fluid flowed down the tubes, as the
little patient enthusiastically jumped
up and down and danced from foot to
foot. As we left the room full of smiling
staff and parents, we added a new
prescription to our clown doctor
remedies: “The Drainage Dance Song—
vivace, fortissimo, four/four beat! To
be taken to the last drop!”
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Room Circus 2013-14 Fiscal Year Supporters
Angels of Laughter
$10,000 - $25,000
Amy Stephson and
Brian Rapalee
Ringmaster's Circle
Order of the Red Nose
$5,000 - $9,999
David Avery and Victoria Millard
Seattle Children’s Hospital
Mark and Debra Perry
$1,000 - $4,999
Zell Millard
Holly Allen
Michael de Groot
Pamela Sach
Richard Karn
Gordon Younger
Big Top Stake Holders
Keepers of the Clown Car
$100 - $199
Andrew Crowder
Bruce Millard
Catherine Thayer
David Williams
Dawn English
Evan Spiridellis
Gloria P Short
G&H Printing
Peter & Janice
Roy-Bryne
Jeff McGregor
Judith Jewell
Kyle & Rachel Garton
Leah Rapalee
Lila O'Mahony
Lynel Joy Westby
Lynn Shemanski
Maria Tober
Maureen Hawkins
Michelle Marshall
Mo Whalen & Carol Lo
Nathan Rothman
Sandy B Miller
Sara Houston
Shira & Matt Brewer
Spencer Beard
Susan Leavitt
Virginia Wilcox
Jane Nichols
Mary Reeve
Laurie Heidorn
$500 - $999
Betsey Beckman
Cynthia Huffman
Jan Hillson
Karen Smith
Mark Wilson & Merry Makers
Roger W. Severt
Rebecca Barnes
Rubber Chicken Club
Baggy Pants Brigade
$200 - $499
Brian & Lynn Grant
Dvorah Kost
Helen Wertheimer
Jane Geare West
Mai & Michael Norden
Marilyn Robbins
Paul & Lucy Lange
$1 - $99
Adrienne Pollock
Karen Stuhldeher Vicki Edwards
Ariel Rathbun
Karin Kallander
William & Pamela
Arifulla Khan
Katie Avery
Schreiber
Barabara Sandberg & $1 - $199
Katie Shinn
Sumire Sugimoto
Denise Hughes
Steffen Fanger
Karen Aho
Becky Wood
Kellie Newton
Jason Frelot
Bindiya Patel
Lane Nothman & Jay Augsburger &
Carla Hellekson
Martin Perlman
Molly Davis
Catherine Englehart
Lauren Trew
Fai Coffin
Chris McEwen
Lawrence Wilson Nicolas Chicka &
Claudia Hoyt
Lisa Maynard
Jeff Lovern
Danny & Linda Rude
Madeline McKenzie
Deborah K Paul
Margaret Sekijima
Denise Knapp
Margo Lauritzen
“We like to
Eliza Davidson
Mark Enslin
follow the
Gordon Sako
Mary Platt
clowns on
Grant Gustafson
Mickey Jou
their rounds.
Hilary Bolles
N. R. Strother
Our job is so
Ian Jamison
Nada Elia
much easier
James & Nancy
Naina Aus
Tillinghast
P. K. Stewart
after the
Jan Villard
Richard Greenberg
clowns have
Janet Rayor
Roger Kelem
been in the
Jason Frelot
Shaun Lawrence &
room.”
Bruce Millard
Nancy Knott
Laura-Beth Straight
Roy & Joan Clark
– Phlebotomy
Keith & Cindy Ervin
Scott Barnhart
(blood draw)
Martha Read
Sheila Lyon
Team
Michael E. Matz
John Bell
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“This is the best medicine
she’s had all day!”
– Father
“I’ve had a really hard
day. That was the
highlight of my week!”
– 15-year-old boy
“That’s the first
time my child has
smiled in months.”
– Mother
Where humor and the healing arts meet.