This Giving Tuesday, YOU can join Arts For Life - from wherever you are - and help us fill the hospital and the world with creativity, discovery, and joy by creating a collaborative community poem that supports and celebrates children and families in our community’s hospitals through the healing power of the arts.

Through the eyes of a child, going to the hospital can be a boring, lonely, and scary experience. It feels like days filled with waiting, running lab tests, yucky medicine, more waiting, needles, and even more waiting. While these are all really important things, what if we could fill that world with something more? Fun and inspiring things like music, frogs, poetry, paint, creativity, and love. We might not be able to change a diagnosis or make medicine taste better, but by bringing the arts into the hospital we can make that waiting just a little more fun and meaningful, share a happy distraction from another needle stick, and gather around the art table to share some crayons and a smile.

Throughout the month of November, Arts For Life is asking our community of patients, families, volunteers, friends and supporters to respond to the prompt, “What would you fill the world with?” We will also invite participants to make a donation that will help Arts For Life fill the world and our hospitals with creativity, discovery, and joy for young patients and families undergoing medical treatment. At the end of the month, we will work with North Carolina Poet and Author Jacinta White, and young patients, families, staff, and volunteers from our hospitals to combine and create a collaborative poem inspired by “Fill The World,” and the incredible community of creators that helped make it possible. 

Join the campaign to create something beautiful together - with patients, families, volunteers, healthcare providers and you - while raising $10,000 to bring meaningful arts engagement programs to thousands of young patients and families. To be a part of the poem, visit artsforlifenc.org/filltheworld and use the comment box to respond to the question “What would you fill the world with?” with a word or short phrase.  After you've shared your answer, please consider making a donation to help us fill the world with creativity by sharing the arts with pediatric patients in hospitals across North Carolina.

Note: We will make every effort to honor the original intent of your submission. Responses may be edited to modify the tense of the word or edited down to fit the creative style of the poem.