Baseballs, dragons, a stuffed lion sporting an Evansville Aces T-shirt — the themed pediatric care rooms at Ascension St. Vincent Evansville’s Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital are decked out to cheer up young patients. “We were looking for a healing and functional environment,” says Sharyn Townsend, Ascension’s manager of pediatrics and the department’s intensive care unit.
Five of 10 rooms have been renovated, with eight fully funded thanks to donations to the health system’s foundation. Discussions started in 2017 to make the rooms more child-friendly, following in the steps of PMCH’s partner facility in Indianapolis. Plans for the sports-themed first room, sponsored by the Ted & Clare Ziemer Society, began in 2022. Donations from the foundation’s 2023 Cornette Ball funded a fairytale room with fairies, knights on horses, and dragons. Hafer developed the donor-chosen themes — PMCH ensures each plan meets clinical standards for patients and staff — and Danco Construction completed updates by August 2024.
Both firms renovated three more rooms by September the following year. “These aren’t sterile, dark, typical hospital environments — they’re kid-friendly environments that meet them on their level and take the anxiety out of the unknown,” Townsend says.
Patients in the University of Evansville room are transported to its local and United Kingdom campuses. “Spending time in a hospital room is not fun, especially for a small child and for the child’s parents. Decorating a room with pictures of the University of Evansville makes the surroundings feel more familiar and more personal,” says Crescent and Wabash Plastics President and CEO John C. Schroeder, who funded the UE room with his wife, Diane. In the Evansville Otters’ room, team owner Bill Bussing wanted patients to feel like they were spending a day at historic Bosse Field. “What better way to bring joy to children at a traumatic moment of their lives than with a bright, colorful depiction of the third-oldest ballpark in America and the magical game that is played there?” Bussing says. The theme was funded by the Bussing-Koch Foundation.
In the Tools4Teaching room sponsored by the Kinney Family Foundation, patients can seek and find images of pencils, paintbrushes, Lego bricks, and chess pieces on the wall. One patient’s mother was anxious and nervous, and it was a weight lifted off her shoulder when she walked into the room. “She could relax and breathe knowing her child was safe,” Townsend says.
