by Marci: philanthropreneur, Mabel’s Executive Pawsistant and Best Furriend

I love kids and animals and all sorts of things. I work with and love helping out Akron Children’s Hospital in particular. One day, I noticed hospitals around the country were starting to see the benefits and fun for kids driving mini cars to surgery or other procedures. I immediately wondered how I could help make that happen in more places and came up with an exciting plan. I wanted to donate mini cars for kids! I also wanted to make it more. I wanted to take those cars one step further and create an initiative I could manage myself then expand on it through fundraising and sponsorships. My vision had various components:

1. Donate mini cars with resources and info to help children’s hospitals initiate a program where the cars would have other resources to reinforce confidence, reduce anxiety, and distract from fear- for kids and their guardians, since I know how we worry about our family.
2. Create a theme where I could build more fun for the kids and encourage them to express any worries and ask any questions while offering resources for the stakeholders. This way I could build web-based materials (my site, social media etc.) and function as a resource for the hospitals receiving the cars, the staff implementing the program, parents concerned for their children, and for the children themselves for more fun and distraction.
3. Fund at least one car and other materials to each of the independent children’s hospitals and find donors, sponsors and others to expand within those hospitals (and possibly to others later) in fun and creative ways – – –so many cool ideas and would love to hear yours!
4. Ensure even when the program appeared focused on surgery for brevity, everyone had a way to identify other areas where the program might help like dentist appointments, therapy, mental wellbeing, and more.

As is usual for me when I have a big idea explode in an instant, I knew I needed to organize the information while making it fun for kids and still find adults who believed in the amazingness of helping children this way. I looked at my silly Great Dane puppy and thought, “kids like dogs and stories and stuffed animals and mini cars and oh wow: Mabel Motors!” And obviously all of our kids are stars, so I added the Mini Cars for Mini Stars tagline so people wouldn’t think I wanted to get dogs driving cars (or dogs as mechanics?). Well, maybe down the road for that one. Mabel still won’t sit on the mini cars.

What a great mascot for these mini cars. I could design a stuffie of Mabel with a story that could identify with each child as well as ask questions. Each child could have their own stuffie. The story would show the child how others have fears, ask, questions, have courage, and most of all, show how others care. Then I could have the Mabel Stuffie ask questions for the “driving test” so each child could get a Mabel paw-signed driving certificate from the, wait for it, Bureau of Mabel Vehicles. Sometimes one has to just roll with the creativity, especially when one is busy writing in her notebook and the real Mabel is trying to slobber on the page and steal her pencil. 

What I love most about putting the theme together this way is I can create kids’ content with the real Mabel to create a connection between each child with a toy Mabel and the real Mabel, exponentially building on concepts we all want to share during stressful times like surgery or dental appointments. There are lots of other details going into what will be this magical initiative, but that’s how we became Mabel Motors: Mini Cars for Mini Stars.

Thanks for reading about us silly philanthropreneurs and being interested in helping kids.  We would love to hear your ideas, questions, and have you join us in the journey. Here’s our (still basic for now) website: http://mabelmotors.org where you can find out more, find our social media links, and subscribe (the usual things) – or just leave a comment or pawprint below. Have a really great day Marci and Mabel 

p.s. just made up that philanthropreneur word and love it, but I can’t decide if the o should be an e – anyone?