Home Away From Home

Home Away From Home needs your support to decorate pediatric hospital rooms in the Kansas City area!

We have been able to decorate dozens of rooms at Children's Mercy Kansas City by providing patients with items that make them feel more at home such as stuffed animals, games, posters, self-care essentials, and more, but we are just getting started! We need your help as sponsors to expand our impact and upgrade our decorations!

Home Away From Home curates personalized decorations that are put up in patients' rooms and ultimately go home with their families. We hope to continue making a difference in children's lives by decorating more rooms at Children's Mercy Kansas City as well as expanding to Overland Park Regional Center with your help!

Why We Started

We founded Home Away From Home because of our co-founder Kate Blumenthal. Kate and Joe McKenzie were inspired from Kate's personal journey of battling an illness in the hospital. After enduring 70 days hospitalized in 2023, grappling with an NJ tube and multiple life-threatening bacterial infections, Kate needed to give back once her healing process began. Joe and Kate were motivated to make a warmer, more comfortable environment. This experience fueled our mission to create spaces within healthcare facilities that feel like home, providing pure joy and support to patients during their toughest times.

Our Mission Statement

We believe that home is a feeling not a place, and our mission at Home Away From Home is to ensure that nobody gets homesick while staying at the hospital. Maintaining mental health is especially vital while in the hospital, so we are taking steps to make sure no child is negatively impacted from the gloominess of a hospital room by making their hospital room looks just like their real room!

What will your help do?

By supporting Home Away From Home, your donation will help more kids feel more at home! It will help us to create and gather more decorations, which will ultimately allow us to decorate way more rooms with more awesome decorations! Your support will also help to bolster outreach beyond just the decorating such as conducting drives and spreading awareness about mental health concerns for pediatric patients in the hospital!

Please contact us with any questions you might have!

Our success would not be possible without our wonderful sponsors! Thank you so much!

Home Away From Home :)

No raffles, sweepstakes, giveaways, or returns on investment are offered in exchange for any donations made to my GoFundMe.