'Our families appreciate everything': How you can help The Children's Inn during COVID

BETHESDA, Md. (ABC7) — Most of us have been feeling some of the negative impacts of the COVID pandemic and now one nonprofit organization providing a "home away from home" for patients and their families for more than 30 years in Bethesda, Md. is also detailing some of its own setbacks during this time.

The Children's Inn is located on the campus of the National Institutes of Health.

"We provide residential services to children, young adults, and their families who travel from all across the country and around the world to come to the NIH for treatments," Cathy Morales said.

Morales is the Chief Program and Service Officer at the Children's Inn.

Most times, I would say those young folks there are dealing with diseases and disorders that are not responsive to standard medical treatment, so the NIH actually represents that last best hope for answers and hopefully, you know, a treatment that will help them and then through them, many, many, many others.

She adds that the Children's Inn exists to provide the patients with residential services at the inn's 60 guest rooms and other amenities to support families during their stay.

"Our tagline is providing a place like home," she emphasized. "But in so many ways, it is so much more than just a place to live, because we also pack a lot of activities and recreational outings and events that really allow our families to let go of some of the stress of dealing with their very seriously ill child, and allow those families to actually be families. Make memories. And put aside some of the clinical stuff for a while."

Impacts of the pandemic

COVID and the surrounding pandemic have since put a bit of a damper on the Children's Inn and their work with patients as well as volunteers.

"With COVID, we had to put in place lots of new precautions and protocols to ensure that," Morales explained. "So I would have to say that one of the most startling things right now, usually in a normal operating year, it's noisy. And we like the noise because kids are being kids, they're running around, they're playing, they're participating in a lot of activities. But it's very quiet right now, because we've had to put in place social distancing."

RELATED: Children's Inn at NIH needs help feeding families, seriously ill children during COVID-19

How you can still help

A lot of the programming and activities for the children have since gone virtual, she adds, but the inn still tries to provide that feeling of home away from home.

"It's just a different feel, but we're still trying to provide that very special experience for our families," Morales said. "Our families appreciate everything that we're doing."

Financial donations

The Children's Inn has also had to cancel a lot of typical public fundraising events it hosts or has had to make the fundraisers virtual, so the inn has not been able to fundraise in a lot of the same ways.

"If folks are interested, I hope they are and want to support the inn, we're always welcoming financial donations," she emphasized.

Donations can be made on the Children's Inn's website.

Donating food

"Because we're not going out into the community, taking [the families] grocery shopping and things like that, we look for donations for shelf-stable items," Morales said.

A lot of the non-perishable, wish list items that families are requesting can also be found on their website.

Volunteering virtually

She adds that the Children's Inn is also following other CDC protocols like wearing masks and following proper hand hygiene, but along with all of the other protocols, the inn has also, unfortunately, had to suspend its in-person programming and volunteering as well.

"We had over a hundred plus volunteers who helped to support the inn on a daily basis, doing everything from helping us staff our front desk to even helping to provide meals, volunteer groups would come in and provide meals for our families at night," she said. "To add that little extra touch of home that you don't have to cook for yourselves."

Some volunteers are still helping out with the inn, but doing so virtually. One of the ways that the public can get involved with the Children's Inn is through virtual tutoring with the children.

"I just heard this morning actually, quick feedback from one of our families is that they saw a marked improvement in their child's test scores as a result of the tutoring," she said. "So we are looking for other opportunities for our volunteers to get involved virtually as well."

The inn is looking for virtual tutors who can cover a variety of different subjects, she adds.

The Children's Inn has had to move its programs to virtual as well, such as taking families on trips around the world like the zoo virtually, Morales says.

"If folks in the community know of opportunities that are coming up, we would love to share them with our families and have them participate as well," she said.

Without the volunteers, the Children's Inn has stepped in to take on many of the roles, Morales says, including providing three meals a day to the families at the inn.

"So any support we can gain from the public helping to do that is welcome," she adds.

To find out more about volunteering with the inn and find out how to sign up, go to their website.

Moving forward

Morales says the inn continues to work hard to connect the patients and their families in a virtual capacity. She says that it has at least made the families and patients feel "very safe" and "well taken care of."

"What I would say to other families and to families that are with us right now - hang in there, we continue to try to find ways to make this still a very unique and amazing experience, even during a very serious pandemic and often times during a very serious time that a family's experiencing," Morales emphasized.

Watch the full interview with Cathy Morales below.