GREENFIELD — It may be July, but Alexis Cooper already has Christmas on her mind.
She has to when she leads an initiative that delivers hundreds of gift baskets to patients in children’s hospitals over the holiday season.
An event benefiting that cause is coming to the Hancock County Fairgrounds. The End of Summer Blast, sponsored by Connor’s Caring Hands, will offer family-friendly festivities like bounce houses, carnival games, a dunk tank, face painting and henna tattoos. Admission is free, while the activities are available for various prices.
More than 40 vendors will fill the fairgrounds, including baked goods and food trucks.
Cooper started Connor’s Caring Hands four years ago as a senior at Greenfield-Central High School. She named the initiative after her late brother, who passed away shortly after he was born due to medical complications when Cooper was 10.
Connor’s Caring Hands puts together and delivers gift baskets for patients in children’s hospitals throughout Indiana and at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, over the holiday season. Cooper stops by Hancock Regional Hospital with baskets on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as well to see if any children are there. The initiative also delivers gift baskets to God’s Open Arms Ministry. Baskets are filled with gifts based on gender and age groups.
Last year, Connor’s Caring Hands delivered more than 600 gift baskets, Cooper said. She is hoping to do even more this year.
Cooper said she added St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to her list because she admires its mission as a nonprofit and its practice of not requiring payment from patients’ families.
“Because dealing with a child in the hospital is enough without having to worry about the financial part of it,” she said.
Family friends dressed as Santa and Mrs. Claus join Cooper at St. Jude on delivery day to visit with the children.
Cooper’s desire to help children in hospitals doesn’t stop with Connor’s Caring Hands. She wants to work as a nurse in a newborn intensive care unit and is starting toward that goal by taking online classes with Marian University to earn a degree in health and human services.
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WHAT: End of Summer Blast, sponsored by Connor’s Caring Hands
WHEN: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, July 20
WHERE: Hancock County Fairgrounds, 620 Apple St., Greenfield
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