Haley’s Happy Birthdays Party
From Haley’s Mom, Heather
Just one year ago in May 2022, we were coming up on the first time we would celebrate Haley’s birthday without her and I realized…Haley had spent 2 of her 3 birthdays in the hospital! Her treatment journey was a blur at times and I finally had a minute to reflect on it. Her 2nd birthday, we had just started treatment and she was inpatient with a fever. Her 3rd birthday she had an outpatient procedure to remove her port and replace it with her central line. While we got to go home that day, it was a full day at the hospital.
We always wanted to give back in some way, so I thought “what if we did birthdays for kids in the hospital?” Dustin and I talked through the idea and decided to call it “Haley’s Happy Birthdays.” In June at an event to celebrate a fish tank being dedicated in Haley’s honor at Texas Children’s Hospital, we pitched the idea. They loved it and said, “let’s do it!”
In the summer of 2022, we started the process of becoming an official 501c3 non-profit organization and decided to name it The Haley Rasco Foundation, giving us flexibility to provide various services and making Haley’s Happy Birthdays our inaugural program.
On August 17, 2022, we officially launched The Haley Rasco Foundation and the very next day delivered our 1st birthday to a patient in the Cancer and Hematology Center at Texas Children's Hospital Main Campus. Since then, we have delivered over 200 birthdays to inpatient and outpatient children at 5 Houston area pediatric hospitals.
Our first ever Haley’s Happy Birthdays community birthday party on May 20, 2023, was a celebration of all that we have achieved since then. Families came and enjoyed the bounce houses and cupcakes while learning more about what we do. Donors were able to walk down our assembly line and make birthday boxes or bags with personalized contents, as well as decorate a unique birthday card for the patient receiving their box. People were able to get more information about what it means to sign up to be on the Bone Marrow Donor Registry and 17 people signed up to join the registry.
It was an amazing feeling to sit back and see the event unfold, reflecting on all that we have done in 9 months and realizing this was all just an idea exactly one year ago. We are forever grateful for the opportunities God has placed in our path to serve these patients, thankful to the donors that financially support us, and the volunteers that help make it happen. Seeing the pictures of patients receiving our birthdays and having parents message us to tell us how our birthdays made their children’s day makes it all worth it.
Thank you to all the vendors that supported our event.
True Joy & Balloon Co
Cypress Yard Cards
Sky High Party Rentals
Sanders Media
Kayleigh Kannady Photography
Thank you all for coming alongside us on this journey to spread Haley’s legacy of joy. She was such a bright light in her short time here and I am grateful every day that we get to steward her legacy by bringing moments of joy to pediatric hospital patients and their families.
