Provides financial and emotional support to families during holidays, birthdays, graduations, and other special occasions. Through nominations and community partnerships, we fulfill holiday wishes and deliver joy where it's needed most — with dignity and love. Families are secretly nominated, with their own secret team who gathers the wishes of the entire family creatively without them knowing, receives, wraps, assembles and then days before the holiday/event they are delivered and families are surprised.

Where imagination becomes memory.

Children or bereaved family members  submit artwork, a favorite picture, a blanket, even a story about a teens CROCs Then through artistic magic its transformed into a huggable custom plush toy— tangible symbols of identity, creativity, and love. Each creation is revealed during a virtual community celebration. 

It takes orchestrating over 60 volunteers and local sponsors help bring these plushies home.

Bereavement Portraits

Families receive a framed portrait of their child after the first year of passing. So often when a child dies it is feared that they won’t be remembered.  Artist Jeff Echevarria donates his time and talents to create these loving tributes — which again are an unexpected gift, affirming that each child is never forgotten.

Mother's Bereavement Retreat Weekend

Launched in 2023, this weekend retreat provided a much needed nurturing space for mothers to connect, grieve, and heal through group support, creative therapy, and guided reflection, time with others. A huge home was donated (say where it was) A team of volunteer and therapists cooked, listened and supported these mothers, providing a space for healing. Goal is an annual event and a virtual support group until Ladybug House is opened. Goal is to also host retreat for fathers 

Nourishment without worry. We provide cafeteria gift cards to caregivers who have extended stays. Primarily these family are on the Hematology/Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant units. ICU, and medical/surgical units.  This program ensures caregivers remain nourished during long inpatient stays — often weeks or months — when meal support is otherwise limited. Seattle Children’s does not feed the caregivers. 

Future plans include expanding with weekly Starbucks coffee cards and for families who have been inpatient over 3 months a once a week meal delivery options for additional emotional and physical comfort.

From the beginning a catch all of support, from gas cards, to baseball tickets, evening out for parents, burial plots, beds for parents sleeping on the floor, diapers etc. one time it was a request for a nice towel and bar shampoo and conditioner for a mom who’d been in the hospital with her child for close to a year.  The needs are there, but often nobody knows

In collaboration with Central Washington University’s Graduate School of Child Life Therapy, Ladybug House is working to establish a virtual program made up of specialists to help provide families with informed, quality support after they leave the hospital. This program aims to foster a connection with children and families to occupational therapists, child life specialists, and social workers and bridges the gap between hospital and home. Families will be able to ask some medical questions and specialists will provide a bit of respite for adults by engaging the children in interactive web-based engagements.