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Pediatric ER nurse donates clothing to children in need

Julie Booth keeps a closet stocked with children’s clothing after repeatedly seeing children get discharged with nothing to wear home

By EMS1 Staff

INDIANAPOLIS — A pediatric ER nurse is helping young patients in need by offering clothing when they have nothing to wear home.

WISHTV reported that Riley Hospital for Children Emergency Department nurse Julie Booth began stocking a closet full of children’s clothing after noticing that children sometimes had nothing to wear after being discharged.

“I saw the nurses really struggling when we’re busy and they’re spending 20 minutes trying to find clothing for a child to wear home,” Booth said. “It’s stressful.”

Booth started buying gently used clothing with her own money to keep in a closet in a hallway of the ER after putting them through a special washing procedure.

“If a parent has come in and been vomited all over or has had a significantly injured child and they’re covered all over with the child’s blood, what are they going to wear? They can’t sit in the hospital like that. So we started looking at these needs.”

Recently, Booth received a $5,000 grant from a philanthropic group, Women for Riley, to purchase new clothing for the closet.

“Now I don’t have to use used clothes, I get to get new clothes to give to our families and it’s just so fun to be able to do that. I love to shop so that’s not a problem,” she said.

“Julie was kind of that effervescent person who came in and told us what she was doing,” Women for Riley member Lee Neff said. “And she had already done this. It wasn’t like she came in with an idea, she had been doing this on her own, she had been spending her own money to go out, shopping thrift stores to buy these clothes; she’s sold hot dogs at yard sales.”

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