Vantage Foundation Brings Bright Moments to Sick Kids with Starlight Sydney Drive

A surprise day of play: Vantage Foundation and Starlight light up Sydney hospitals

When volunteers from the Vantage Foundation arrived at three Sydney hospitals this month, they didn’t bring long speeches or big cheques. They brought music, games and small gifts — the kind of simple things that can change a hospital room into a place where a child can laugh for a little while. The Starlight Sydney initiative, run in partnership with the national charity Starlight Children’s Foundation, sent teams into paediatric wards for bedside visits, hosted pop-up play sessions and handed out comfort packs to families.

The action was immediate and local: teams showed up on scheduled days at children’s wards, staged short performances and left behind activity kits so the positive effects would last beyond a single visit. For families balancing medical decisions and long days at the hospital, the program offered a break and a reminder that the community cares.

Who the Vantage Foundation is and why this partnership matters

The Vantage Foundation is the community arm of a professional services group that runs an annual program called Team Building with Purpose. The program pairs company volunteers with local charities to do hands-on work rather than just writing a cheque. Over the last several years the foundation has focused its giving on health and child welfare projects, aiming to create visible, immediate benefits where volunteers can see the results.

Starlight Children’s Foundation is a long-standing Australian charity that specialises in brightening hospital stays and supporting seriously ill children and their families. The partnership matters because it moves corporate volunteering beyond desk-based charity drives into direct human contact — a form of corporate giving that charities and families say delivers outsized emotional value.

What happened during the Starlight Sydney initiative

The program ran across several days in mid-December. Volunteer teams visited three major children’s hospitals in Sydney. On each day volunteers split into small groups: some ran bedside entertainment with music and puppets, others led craft and game stations in communal areas, and a logistics team assembled and distributed comfort packs for families.

Organisers say the effort reached roughly three hundred children and their siblings over the course of the week. Each family received a comfort pack containing age-appropriate toys, colouring packs, and practical items for parents such as meal vouchers and information about support services. Starlight staff trained volunteers in hospital etiquette and how to respond to children with different needs. A small fund raised by Vantage Foundation also paid for additional sensory toys used in therapy rooms.

The approach was deliberately hands-on: volunteers spent time at bedsides, learned patients’ favourite games, and coordinated with nurses so the visits fitted medical schedules. That practical coordination helped ensure visits were comfortable and that the team’s time was used where it could do the most good.

Faces and moments: what the visits meant to families

For a young boy spending his second week in hospital, a volunteer-led magic trick turned a dull afternoon into something to remember. “He hasn’t smiled like that since he came in,” said one mother after a bedside performance. Another family said the comfort pack made a hard night easier, because it included a blanket and a small toy that eased their toddler’s fear of needles.

Volunteers reported that the experience changed them too. “You think you know what you’re walking into, but seeing a child light up at a silly song sticks with you,” one volunteer said. Health staff appreciated the relief: nurses said short, cheerful visits helped lift the mood on wards and created peaceful pockets of calm that made routine care easier.

How the community responded and ways to get involved

Local responses were positive. Hospital staff, community groups and small businesses pitched in by donating items for the comfort packs or offering in-kind support like snacks and printing services. Volunteer sign-ups filled quickly for the scheduled days, showing appetite in the community for hands-on charity work.

Readers who want to support similar efforts can look for local Starlight volunteer programs or corporate giving initiatives in their workplaces. Donations of time, small new toys, or contributions to local hospital charity funds are the kinds of help that allow this work to continue.

About the organisations and press contacts

Starlight Children’s Foundation is an Australian charity that focuses on improving the lives of seriously ill children and their families through hospital-based programs, play therapy and family support. The Vantage Foundation is the philanthropic arm of a professional services group that runs volunteer-led community projects under its Team Building with Purpose program.

For media enquiries, Vantage Foundation press office: [email protected]. Starlight media enquiries: [email protected]. To learn more about volunteering or donating locally, search for Starlight Children’s Foundation or Vantage Foundation through official charity directories or community services listings.

Sources

• prnewswire.com