The phone call had become a cherished event.
Barb Geller was certainly of that mindset when she was able to speak with her granddaughter, 8-year-old Hayley Orlinsky, as they were separated by a few hundred miles and undermined by a pandemic that prevented their treasured time together and the hugs that came with it.
But, on occasion, those cherished calls came to an abrupt end.
“I’d call her and she’d say, ‘Can I call you later? I have an interview with Lester Holt in 5 minutes,’’’ said Geller.
What’s a grandma to do when her granddaughter needs to talk with the host of "NBC Nightly News?"
So she’d call again, only to hear this:
‘“Gotta go,’’’ Hayley Orlinsky would tell her. ‘“Drew Barrymore is calling.’’’
“Drew Barrymore? The Hollywood actress? She needs to talk with my granddaughter?’’ Geller would think to herself.
“It was just funny to see,’’ said Geller, "And I’m happy to see it hasn’t affected her one bit.”
No, most 8-year-old girls don’t run with that kind of crowd – like ever. But most 8-year-old girls don’t raise money to help people who are complete strangers; just because she found out they needed help.
“We’re incredibly grateful for her and just everything she has done for the hospital for the last year,’’ Tracey McCusker, associate director of community engagement for the Lurie Children’s Foundation at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, said of Hayley Orlinsky.
“We were so incredibly inspired by Hayley.”
It was just over a year ago when Hayley was in the same room as her mom, Lori, who was watching the local news. And when Hayley heard the anchor talking about the shortage of personal protective equipment for doctors and nurses at Chicago-area hospitals, her ears stood at attention.
So she went up to her room and put a recent Face Time visit with a friend to good use, using a new skill to make a friendship bracelet. She came back downstairs and told her mom she was going to make these bracelets, sell them, and raise $200 for Lurie Children’s Hospital, where she was once a patient in the neonatal intensive care unit.
“Well, I thought, 'It sounds like a really great idea, but I don’t know if she’s going to pull it off because she says her goal was to raise $200,' and I thought it was pretty lofty,’’ said Geller, who lives in Gahanna, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus, when she first heard of Hayley’s plan.
Geller was right. Hayley didn’t raise the $200 she hoped for.
When Hayley presented a check last week to the hospital, it was for $50,000.
“But, $50,000, I’m just totally blown away,’’ said Geller. “It’s just truly amazing. And needless to say, I’m so proud of her.’’
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Hayley’s life began off-script. During birth, Geller said the family was told Hayley had swallowed meconium, a thick, green, tar-like substance that lines a baby’s intestines during pregnancy.
“As she came out, it was like a scene from ‘ER,’” said Geller. “The neonatal team came running in, all these top doctors and everything, we didn’t know what was going on, it was like a frenzied atmosphere like you’d see on a TV show.
“And they told us she actually swallowed it and they intubated her and were giving her CPR, and she ended up being in the NICU for a week. It was like touch and go for the first day or two; then she was fine.”
Lori said Hayley grew up a happy, confident child but that changed around age 3 when her preschool classroom hung up a growth chart. She measured the shortest among her peers, and came home in tears.
“Her friends started calling her names like ‘shorty’ and ‘munchkin,’’’ said Lori, “And they were obviously being silly and cute, but it just hurt her feelings, so it was really hard for her.’’
Lori and her husband, Brian, went in search of a heroine on TV, or a character in a book that was small in stature but did great things.
“We couldn’t find anybody,’’ said Lori.
So Lori, a talented wordsmith, did the one thing she knew best. She wrote her own book – “Being Small (Isn’t So Bad After All).”
“So I originally just wrote the book to teach her and to show her she was special,’’ said Lori. “Releasing it ended up being the best thing. I think she always felt like she had something to prove being the shortest one.’’
The book went on to win numerous awards and led to Lori writing a series of children’s books.
“People always say, ‘Sticks and stones will break your bones but names will never hurt you,’ but it couldn’t be more untrue because bullying stays with you for the rest of your life,’’ said Lori, who is certified by the CDC in Bullying Prevention and Response Training. “And so I wanted to be able to show Hayley that she can make a difference, and she took that message to heart.’’
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At first, Lori thought Hayley’s project would provide a brief respite for the inevitable boredom the pandemic would bring. Hayley had already proven her marketing chops when she led her Girl Scout troop in selling cookies, putting the power of Facebook to good use. So Hayley naturally believed she could replicate those results with her bracelet idea.
So out on Facebook it went and the Orlinskys waited to see what, if anything, would happen.
Well, here’s what happened.
In relatively short order, money began to flow in, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and actor Miguel Cervantes, who played the lead role in Chicago’s production of “Hamilton,” were soon wearing her bracelets. Her story was spread across numerous local media outlets. She was honored by her favorite team, the Chicago White Sox, was nominated for a 2020 Red Cross Youth Hero Award and had her alderman threw a parade in her honor.
When Lightfoot requested Hayley make bracelets in the colors of the Chicago flag – red, white and light blue – things really took off.
It became common for Hayley to sit in her bed, with the help of her younger sister Ellie separating the colors for her, and make 50 bracelets at a time while listening to her favorites, Nick Jonas and Taylor Swift.
“As it started getting increasingly busy for her, we started recruiting new people to help,’’ said Lori. “So she is in a Girl Scout troop and we had several people from her troop volunteer, and lots of kids at school, and even her camp director; she got her whole camp involved last summer so she would come home with 400 bracelets at a time, which was amazing because the kids would spend their free time making bracelets.
“In addition to people just buying the bracelets and, in turn, donating the money, we had so many people reach out to us and say, ‘Can I make bracelets? Can I help mail them?’ We had a lot of people, parents of teenagers, parents of kids who used to make bracelets, who said, ‘I went into my basement and dug out my child’s old supplies. We’re going to mail them to you.’ We met such lovely people and gained new friendships because of this, too.”
Then, came an appearance on “Good Morning America,’’ then another, on “The Drew Barrymore Show.’’
“Every time we thought this couldn’t get any bigger … ’’ said Lori.
“It got much bigger,’’ said Hayley.
It sure did. As the calendar turned to 2021, a Los Angeles-based company called Distinctive Assets called and asked if Hayley could make enough bracelets to add to this year’s Grammy Award swag bags, which were given to all performers and presenters.
“Every year, they have a charity component and this year, they asked if we can put bracelets in, so Hayley made special bracelets with charms and those were included in the Grammy swag bags,’’ said Lori. “She was really excited for that and had a lot of donations afterward.”
It’s was enough to make your head spin, not to mention make a grandma proud.
“What I’m most proud of though, that despite all of that notoriety, she’s never lost site of the reason she was doing this and the mission to help people,’’ said Geller. “And she’s remained grounded and determined, and I credit her parents for instilling those values in her. That is what I’m truly most proud of.
“I hope she continues with her giving and compassionate nature, but I know one thing for sure, her college essay is already written.’’
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Hayley said there is one thing above all else that she’s learned in the past year.
“This really taught me that I love to help,’’ she said. “And people are also really nice to help me and support me and support the hospital.”
Lurie Children’s Hospital – which has helped numerous Wisconsin families whose children have suffered from genetic breathing disorders, to repairing spina bifida before a baby’s birth to early cochlear implantations for quick speech development — in turn, has been most appreciative of that support.
“We know some of our nurses and some of our staff reached out directly to Hayley and her family because they saw her fundraising efforts and directly reached out and said, ‘Thank you so much for doing what you’re doing for us,’’’ said McCusker.
“It’s been a really rough year for a number of reasons, and so challenging for everyone and I feel like Hayley was that light this past year, just trying to do something good, while we’re all navigating through the pandemic. So we’ve definitely heard from our staff, how thankful they are for her efforts and how it kept them going also through everything.”
Aside from purchasing PPE, McCusker said the monies have been used for other COVID-19-related programs such as telehealth, enabling them to get a mobile health truck to help people in need where they live, and also launch clinical trials on COVID-19 for kids.
“So we can’t thank Hayley enough for the incredible dollars she raised over the past year,’’ said McCusker.
Despite all the attention she’s received and all the celebrities she’s met, Lori said the overwhelming highlight for Hayley this past year was when she was able to go to Lurie Children’s Hospital, write her name on a check and present it to the hospital staff.
“She had tears in her eyes when she was smiling for those pictures,’’ said Lori, who said at the end some 15,000 bracelets were made and shipped as far away as Italy. “It was beautiful.”
And, no doubt, it brought a few tears to mom’s eyes as well.
“It leaves me speechless. It really does,’’ said Lori. “I keep saying, if this is Hayley at 7 and 8 years old, I cannot wait to see what the future holds for her because you’re absolutely right, it’s not the size of your body, it’s the size of your heart, and her heart is just bursting.”
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