Young Student Brings Joy to Kids During Christmas

DULUTH, Minn. — In the spirit of giving, one high school student is doing her part to spread some cheer to kids who are having difficult times during the holidays.

Sophie Roazen, a high school freshman, is leading her second annual stuffed animal donation drive. Sophie’s mother, is an ER Doctor at St. Luke’s hospital, and found herself working during Christmas last year.

Which led Sophie into thinking about all the kids who are hospital bound during the holidays.

“It feels so nice to know, especially little kids who don’t understand what’s going and that’s really scary, especially on Christmas, I feel like it’s something a lot of kids look forward too and having a scary experience when you’re supposed to be having fun—isn’t fun. It’s really nice knowing I helped them and made them happy,” said Sophie Roazen, creator of the donation drive.

Last year, Sophie started with a goal—to gather as many stuffed animals as possible, to give kids comfort during Christmas.

With the help of her mom, in her first year, she dropped of over 100 stuffed animals to St Luke’s and Essentia Hospitals for pediatric patients.

“You know the hospital can be a scary place and over the holidays people are here for reasons that are always so great and when there are little bits of light that can be given to them, especially over the holidays like a gift or stuffed animal, it makes all the difference in the world,” said Megan Avery, Development Associate, St. Luke’s Foundation.

Sophie reached out to various schools in the area, and placed donation boxes at Duluth Marshall and Many Rivers Montessori, and had a box setup at St Luke’s as well.

“It was really interesting figuring out how to reach out to different schools and hospitals, it was definitely a learning experience figuring out how to coordinate everything,” said Roazen.

The young student also has a jewelry business and while attending craft fairs, she encouraged customers to donate to the drive.

“I did a craft fair a little while ago where someone was selling stuffed animals, and someone actually bought one and brought it over to drop it off which is really awesome,” said Roazen.

After a large success last year, Sophie says she’s able to donate even more this year, and those at the St Luke’s Foundation, say they’re very grateful for Sophie’s drive.

“In someone as young as Sophie, that spirt and the desire to give back is an amazing quality to have and it touches so many lives, so when we see that in somebody so young, we’re excited to collaborate and make this the best event possible,” said Avery.

“I want to see it grow to something bigger, next year we want to see if we can reach out to all the schools in Duluth, so you can donate to any school. And we want to see how many hospitals we can reach out to in the area as well,” said Roazen.

Sophie hopes to continue the drive for years to come. She is even looking to set up website for people to donate remotely.