The story of an exceptional five year old!
What do most five year old boys want for their birthday? Cars, footballs, lego? Well, Taylor Woodgate is not like most boys. Taylor was born at 23 weeks gestation at a mere 580 grams. When he turned five, to celebrate his birthday, his family decided that he had plenty of toys and would rather people donated birthday money to The Little Miracles Trust (Wellington).
Believe it or not, Taylor raised enough money for five Pepi-Pod® sleep spaces. The Little Miracles Trust (Wellington) matched his five and raised him another few so in total the Neonatal Unit at Wellington Hospital received 25 Pepi-Pod® sleep spaces.
Pepi-Pod® sleep spaces were designed by a group based in Christchurch called “Change for Our Children”. Pepi-Pod® sleep spaces started as emergency beds for vulnerable babies in Christchurch, following the 2011 earthquakes. They are a baby cot that is made out of a base that is a plastic box and comes with a lovely cover, a mattress, sheets and blankets. As the Pepi-Pod® sleep space was such a success in Christchurch, Change for Our Children started looking at how else the Pepi-Pod® sleep space could help other communities in New Zealand. They talked to a number of health professionals about the issue of safe sleeping and started working with midwives and hospitals to get the safe sleeping word out there.
The 25 Pepi-Pod® sleep spaces that the Wellington NICU received are used by the Community Team to loan out to families in need who are struggling to find safe sleeping options for their premature babies when they take them home.
The story of our Neonatal Hero Taylor isn’t over yet though. Taylor’s grandmother was so proud of her grandson’s kindness and generosity and she loved the Pepi-Pod® sleep space idea. Sadly she passed away but prior to passing away she requested that instead of flowers, donations kindly be made to The Little Miracles Trust. The money this raised went on to pay for 10 new mattresses for the Pepi-Pod® sleep spaces, an ongoing cost to the Trust.
Taylor, we are so grateful to you, your grandmother, and your family and friends who so kindly gave you birthday money. Many babies will benefit from your selfless act in future years. On behalf of all those who will benefit from Taylor’s generosity, we say thank you Taylor!
Further information about Pepi-Pod® sleep spaces can be found here:
http://www.changeforourchildren.co.nz/tender_shoot/pepi_pod_programme/home
Thanks so much for sharing your personal story!
We get a lot of positive feedback from families in a neonatal unit who read these stories and feel strength, hope and positivity knowing that they are not alone going through these experiences and feeling certain emotions.
If you would like to discuss sharing the story of your neonatal journey, we’d love to hear from you.
Support Us
If you want to help our support of families going through the stress and anxiety of a neonatal journey, you can donate via the link below.
- The Little Miracles Trust provides support to families of premature or sick full-term babies as they make their journey through Neonatal Intensive Care, the transition home, and onwards. We do not receive any Government funding and are entirely reliant on the generosity of individuals, companies and organisations in the form of donations, value-in-kind donations, grants, sponsorship and fundraising events to supplement operating costs and fund our services and initiatives.
- As we are a registered charity (CC56619) with Charities Services New Zealand we will send you an IRD compliant tax receipt – this will happen automatically by return email.