UF Footprints program makes meals for Shands cancer families

Zachary Sandoval spent about an hour preparing sloppy joes for 30 families of pediatric cancer patients Wednesday.

He was one of seven volunteers who gathered in the kitchen of the Ronald McDonald House of Gainesville, located on Southwest 14th Street, to feed families of the patients. By 6:30 p.m., parents filed in line, glass plates in hand, as they got ready to eat dinner prepared by the UF students.

Since 2010, members of the Footprints Buddy and Support Program, a UF student-run volunteer program, has been feeding the parents and guardians of children in UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital. All of the children are in Unit 42, the home of the pediatric hematology unit and the oncology unit.

The students prepare meals about twice a month, Sandoval said. About a month ago, the volunteers made a s’mores pancake breakfast on a Saturday morning.

UF students started the group to give one-on-one support for kids from birth to 12 years old who have been diagnosed with terminal illnesses, said Caroline Wojtas, a UF Spanish and biology senior. The cost of feeding about 30 people varies from $50 to $60.

To raise money to buy ingredients, Footprints has partnered with other restaurants, including Chipotle and Olive Garden, to hold fundraisers, the 21-year-old said.

After spending so much time at the hospital, many parents and guardians get back to the house and are too exhausted to cook, she said.

“A lot of the families are with their kids all day, and the last thing they want to do is come back and cook a meal,” Wojtas said.

Sandoval, a UF biology and psychology sophomore, started volunteering his freshman year. Though the 19-year-old had never volunteered with children before, Sandoval said he wanted to make sure children in the cancer unit had as memorable of a childhood as he did.

“The fact that these kids are stuck in the hospital when they should be out in the field making memories is why I want to go and help them create different memories,” he said.

Volunteers work in Unit 42 once a week for three hours, sitting with kids, playing games with them and telling them stories.

“I want them to try and feel like they’re enjoying their childhood still,” he said. “I want them to forget that they are in a hospital.”

Brittany Edelmann, a 20-year-old UF nursing junior, said she has been working with Footprints since August 2015.

While working with a boy at the hospital, he told her he dreamt of being a tattoo artist like his uncle. He then drew her a “tattoo” dinosaur and heart on her gloves before telling her that he loved her, she said.

“While the tattoos may have not been permanent, the memory left a mark on both myself and the little boy,” Edelmann said. “That is truly everlasting.”

From left: Zachary Sandoval, a UF biology and psychology sophomore, cooks onions while Grant Filowitz, a UF graduate student, browns beef on a nearby stove at the Ronald McDonald House of Gainesville. The two Footprints Buddy and Support Program volunteers made sloppy joes for the families of the patients in Unit 42.