Little cousin with cancer inspires girls to sew hospital gowns for sick children

FREEHOLD, NJ — Fighting brain cancer, little Giada Demma lay in her pediatric hospital bed, her tiny body practically swimming in a drab green hospital gown.

Her cousin Giuliana Demma remembers looking at the one-year-old and thinking how sad the scene was: a small child thrust into an ugly dress several sizes too big for her.

“I thought, ‘Why does she have to wear that?’ Why can’t she wear something prettier?'” Giuliana said.

Inspired by this moment, Giuliana Demma, 13, and her sister Audrina, 11, sewed and donated more than 1,800 dresses in bright colors and playful patterns to children in hospitals in 36 states. They even sent them to Uganda, and three other African countries are expected to receive them in the fall.

“I wanted to do something to help kids like (Giada) and give them hospital gowns with cute designs, colorful, that they can feel comfortable in while they’re going through a difficult time,” she said. Giuliana said.

Their family hired a seamstress to make a custom Disney princess dress for little Giada, who was hospitalized in 2017 and is now doing well. But as Giuliana grew up over the next four or five years, she developed an interest in sewing and remembered how lost her little cousin looked in a dull, ill-fitting dress from the years earlier.

Once Giuliana learned to sew, her cousin was no longer hospitalized. But she began making happy dresses for other sick children. Her first designs were dresses with flamingos and Paris-themed designs for a child with cancer that her aunt knew.

No child is ever charged for one of her dresses, which are funded by donations of money and materials. The Starbucks Foundation awarded a $3,000 grant to the project this year. A hospital linen company, ImageFIRST in Clifton, New Jersey, cleans all the clothes for free before they are sent to the hospital, and a women’s group from a nearby housing project and a church youth group help about 40 volunteers cut fabric for the girls.

Giuliana gets help from her sister, who also likes to sew. Audrina will step in when Giuliana has homework to do, heading to the basement of their home in Freehold, New Jersey, not far from the Jersey Shore, which has been taken over by the sewing operation.

Audrina’s specialty is sewing small pillows for young patients. They are sent with boxes of markers so that recipients can color them as they wish during their hospital stay.

Audrina made 100 pillows in an effort to win her Girl Scout Bronze award, packaged them and sent them to hospitals. She makes seasonally themed pillows for St. Patrick’s Day, Valentine’s Day and other special times; last winter, she made 100 snowman-shaped pillows.

They are often part of the packages that girls create that include rubber ducks and other toys. LIV Like a Unicorn, a local pediatric cancer charity, includes them in boxes it sends to children battling cancer. The Minnesota charity Children’s Surgery International brought 60 of the gowns to hospitals in Uganda in February and more will be sent to Gambia, Liberia and Ethiopia in the fall.

Some of the recipients respond to thank the girls for the dresses and pillows.

“I love seeing the smiles on children’s faces, even if they are going through very difficult times,” said Audrina, who wants to become a veterinarian.

The girls recently began sewing zippers onto brightly colored T-shirts to accommodate infusion ports for chemotherapy or other medications that could allow young patients to not have to wear a gown at all during their hospitalization.

Samantha DiSimone’s son Vito was hospitalized in January in New York for heart valve disease when he was 9 months old. Hospital staff brought a sealed package containing a Giuliana gown made from fabric with a design from the movie “Cars.”

He smiled big as they unwrapped the garment.

“I was so emotional,” Samantha DiSimone said. “You’re in a hospital praying that your child will survive surgery, and seeing him in that gown with a big smile on his face is an incredible thing.”

Soft-spoken but perfectly at ease recounting her efforts, Giuliana has the confidence and maturity of someone above her years, despite having just graduated from college. She wants to become a cancer surgeon and says she enjoys hearing from the recipients of these scrubs.

“I’m really happy that I can help make a difference for them during this difficult time,” she said. “I want them to feel confident and know that they are an inspiration, that they are loved, that they are strong and courageous. They can wear these dresses and have something to lift their spirits.”

Melissa Demma, Giada’s mother, said the willingness of her child’s young cousins ​​to make and give away dresses “amazes me and touches me every day.”

“They are young girls and this is what they choose to do: spend their time helping others,” she said. “If everyone could be like that, our world would be a better place. It makes me feel better about the future and what this world could be.