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Kerri Murawski and her daughter Delainee are on a mission to help hospitalized children: one pillow at a time.

Inspired by her own surgeries and hospitalization, 17-year-old Delainee and her mother have worked together to create pillows and donate them to children’s hospitals in Virginia, D.C., Louisville, and Kentucky. This helps bring comfort to other children going through a difficult time. Currently, they are both working to craft 100 pillows for the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughter before Halloween, their first round of pillows since the COVID-19 pandemic.

During a Sept. 18 interview, Murawski and Delainee both had a chance to talk about their work of making pillows to help others. Murawski says it all started when then four-year-old Delainee had a sudden cardiac arrest, which led her to spend “about a month” in the hospital.

“She had two surgeries at that point, and when we finally got to leave, the nurse told us that I should put a pillow between her car seat straps and her incision so that she was comfortable on the way home. So I can sew, so I went home and I made a pillow, because I thought, ‘Well, a giant pillow isn’t gonna fit in a car seat,’” Murawski said with a laugh. “So I went home, I made a small pillow and I brought it back to the hospital. So when she was released, we put it between her car seat and her abdomen and, I guess she was comfortable. She didn’t complain.”

Murawski says when Delainee was “about five or so,” they both talked about how every kid should have pillows after surgery so that whether they’re in a car seat or seat belt after going home, they would have something to keep them comfortable. 

“Or even just while they’re at the hospital, because we use fun prints, so it’s something that would remind them of being at home or something happy in their life than being stuck in the hospital,” she said.

Murawski says they both would pick out fabric from the store where she would sew and her daughter would stuff the pillows. As Delainee got older, she became a baseball fan, where she and Murawski started traveling outside of Virginia for baseball games. During these travels, they would find nearby children’s hospitals and bring “about 50, sometimes 100” pillows to drop to each hospital’s Child Life Program.

Delainee shared that during these travels and donations, she was even able to meet Buffalo Bills Safety Damar Hamlin while in Pennsylvania.

“I shared with him what I did or what I am [doing] with the pillows for patients, and he said ‘I would help you do it.’ And so he encouraged us to start it up again,” Delainee said.

Murawski says that Delainee had two surgeries when she was four, two more in 2017 and one in 2018, where she would take pillows with her. Delainee talked more about her heart condition, catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (CPVT).

“So it causes high heart rate when exercising and doing like, crazy activities, like basketball, soccer, running around, things like that. Adrenaline,” she said.

Sharing her experience going through the surgeries, Delainee says it was “scary.”

“And it’s like all the beeps and noises in the hospital would freak me out thinking my pacemaker would go off,” she said. “So still, to this day, I don’t like sounds of beeping things or anything like that or certain doorbell sounds scare me.”

Murawski says that things are different for her daughter due to having a pacemaker, even when she was a little kid. 

“So she missed out on a lot of things, I think, when she was younger. And I think just having something that makes that experience that was not so great, and that you have to live with that, just into something that’s maybe comforting to someone else, right? Make some other little kid feel more comfortable about such a giant change,” Murawski said. “And it’s so scary there for little kids in the hospital and she, like she said, she is still – to this a day – scared of certain noises and it was just like a post traumatic thing for her.”

Due to not being able to participate in sports, Murawski says creating pillows is a good outlet for her daughter. 

“…when she’s going to watch baseball or we go and travel, she can do this. I think it just makes her happy, right?” she said. “She wants to get to the point where, and I’m not sure how hospitals will feel about this, because they have a holding period once you make a donation. I’m not sure how long, but they have to hold it to make sure it’s germ free, but she wants to get to the point where she could at least be there, if possible, now that she’s older, to donate some time and be able to hand them out. So that’s our next step.”

On what they want each individual to take away from the pillows they receive, Delainee says that “not everything has to be scary.” Murawski says she wants them to know there’s “always something you can do for someone.”

“Whether it’s giving them a pillow or just giving them a hug or just telling them you know that they’re strong and that things like surgeries and lifelong medical conditions don’t necessarily stop you from doing things that you love, and you can turn anything negative into a positive,” Murawski said.

To donate supplies to the Murawski’s, visit gofund.me/81a349c0 or email Kerri Murawski at kerriskweens@gmail.com.