Budget cut almost cancels field trip to CHKD

HICKORY - King Richard III was so desperate for a means of transportation during a battle he shouted: “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.”

Mollie Williams can relate.

The first-grade teacher at Hickory Elementary School didn’t have a kingdom to offer when the lack of free bus transportation from the school district threatened to cancel a much-anticipated field trip May 1 to the Let’s Pretend Children’s Hospital sponsored by the Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters in Norfolk.

“The school had never been accepted to go before,” Williams said. “We had gotten permission to take a third field trip.”

Everything changed after the School Board was forced to make budget cuts, which included no longer providing bus transportation for field trips.

“Our principal, Mr. (Meredith) Garrett, tried to get the school district to take this field trip, which they had accepted to do, but they wouldn’t provide the transportation,” Williams said. “So we had to go to Plan B.”

That meant chartering buses, two of them.

“The parents in Chesapeake don’t realize how lucky they’ve been over the years with the school district providing transportation,” Williams said.

Parents forked over money for one bus, and the resourceful Williams found a grant to pay for a second bus to haul the three first-grade classes of Williams, Erin Brown and Sandi Moseley to CHKD.

The Let’s Pretend Hospital re-creates numerous areas in a real hospital: emergency room, radiology, operating room, laboratory, a patient’s room, a hospital playroom and a hospital school program area, as well as CHKD transport vehicles.

 Each station offers hands-on learning experience as the students pretend to need casts, X-rays and even surgery.

Invitations are sent out to all of the Hampton Roads elementary schools, who must then apply and wait to see if they are selected by lottery, according to Sam Fabian, CHKD community outreach program manager.

“The idea is to help alleviate children’s fears of the hospital if they or anyone they love ends up there,” Williams said.

The children got a close look at a cast saw, and, instead of seeing something scary, one student said it “tickled” as the saw cut through the cast on his arm.

“This program was so beneficial,” Williams said. “The people at CHKD were so friendly and accommodating to make it child-friendly. It will make a tremendous difference when the time comes if they have to go the hospital. And it may have even sparked an interest for future careers.”