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Philly teen who beat cancer helps kids hospitalized through room makeovers
Ayana Banks, 17, started the Sweet Dream Project in 2021 to help bring joy to kids who are hospitalized through epic room makeovers — and it's a full-circle moment.
PHILADELPHIA - Doctors diagnosed Ayana at the age of six with stage four neuroblastoma. She relapsed, went into remission and is now cancer free.
She wants other kids in the hospital to have the same environment she had which made the stay a little more comfortable and bearable.
What they're saying:
"I started the Sweet Dream Project in 2021," said Ayana Banks. It began with a capstone project the now 17-year-old was doing in her 10th grade year at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy.
"So, build an app, make a product or do a service. I was actually struggling with what I wanted to go through with," she said. So, she explored options and did some research.
"I saw that it said that there is about five million pediatric patients in long-term stays in the hospital per year. And in 2014 I was one of those kids," she said.
Ayana remembers her time going between CHOP and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City as a kid with cancer.
"My hospital room was always decorated with Hello Kitty pillows and princess blankets and posters," she recalled. It was then that the idea for her project became crystal clear.
"I remember more joyous moments in the hospital than I remember the sad parts and I really think that's because my hospital room was decorated," she said. Her school project is now her very own non-profit.
"I chose to call it the Sweet Dream Project so that every kid could feel comfortable and more familiar in their hospital room and to have sweet dreams at night," she said.
Ayana was surprised to learn that it was her mom, Yolanda, who decorated her various hospital rooms. They did not come that way.
"She was intending to continue to help me without me knowing that she's going through any distress or hardship and so I really admire her and look up to her," she said about her mom.
Ayana says CHOP helps by signing up families for her room makeover and gifts.
"They'll fill out a form with a patient on their favorite animal, their favorite show and all of their favorite things. So then after I get that form, I can personalize what I want to order for them," said Ayana.
"And then I pack all of that into a Sweet Dream portable duffle bag," she said. "I also want to make childhood cancer awareness more aware around this country."
The Source: The information in this story is from The Sweet Dream Project and Ayana Banks, Founder.