Personal touches
“My daughter has had kidney surgeries at the Children’s Hospital. The first one was when she was just 2 months old,” said Greg McCarn, vice president of marketing, sales and media for Lyric
Street. “Most of us have children and many of us have had a personal experience at the
Children’s Hospital.”
McCarn is grateful to report his daughter is now 10 and doing well. “As a parent I have seen both the older facility and the new one and I know how
amazing this place is. Children’s Hospital is in our own backyard, our own community.”
McCarn was one of the originators of the idea for the event, along with the
members of Rascal Flatts. The party for the patients is in addition to an
annual full-scale concert, which this year raised $3 million for Children’s Hospital.
The Lyric Street staff comes over from Music Row and really work this event. The
VoluntEARS gather up some serious party goods for the event: loads of coloring
books, stuffed animals, “Cars” toys and, of course, the Disney characters. But while the hit of the party,
invariably, is the performance and star power, what the families take away is a
gift of a magical memory, and a Polaroid photograph. The Polaroid is no small
thing.
“We managed to get what must be the last 200 Polaroid film strips in existence,” laughed Conley. (Since Polaroid has ceased production, future photos will be
digital prints.) For an intense couple of hours, the VoluntEARS snapped
pictures to help children and families preserve the memory.
“It’s a lot of work, but it is worth it,” said Goodman. “Especially when parents tell us that this means a lot to them and to their
child.”
Goodman and his staff often talk about one patient they recall, Deanna Glossup.
Deanna and her family became very close with the Lyric Street volunteers and
the Rascal Flatts members in the two years she attended the party. Deanna lost
her battle with cancer at age of 14 in 2007, but her parents, Dean and Bobbie Jean, remain grateful for the
magic their daughter experienced; magic that helped Deanna forget about her suffering and become just a child again for a few
moments.
Bobbie Jean was in the audience for this year’s performance and party. She said the band and Lyric Street staff are now
friends and she wouldn’t miss it for the world.
The Glossups were featured in a video to commemorate Lyric Street’s 10th anniversary. Their images were in a Children’s Hospital video accompanied by an Albert Einstein quote that Goodman says sums
it all up for the company: “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be
counted.”
Goodman, the father of a 14-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter, said: “We enjoy the day in a very existential way: doing something that is uncountable.”
