what is your small change used for?

The little yellow boxes are back. From January 8 to February 8, you can give up your spare change to help hospitalized children. An operation which made it possible in 2024 to finance ten new projects in the Grand Est, for an amount of 96,795 euros.

Presque 100 000 euros and the daily life of hundreds of hospitalized children improves. Sometimes because their parents can sleep with them, in a specially designed room or in a Parents’ House, sometimes because the pediatric services are better decorated, warmer, better equipped, but also because the Yellow Rooms operation helps them will have allowed you to discover new activities or take a little respite outside the hospital. Another aspect supported by the Yellow Pieces operation, less well known: the suffering of adolescents and the construction of Houses dedicated to them. Eclectic projects therefore, but which always aim to improve the hospitalization conditions of the youngest and the comfort of their loved ones.

In the Grand Est, in 2024, around ten projects received funding from the Yellow Pieces operation, for a total amount of 96 795 euros. In Alsace, for example, children hospitalized at the Alsace Nord public health establishment can find a very special companion every Tuesday: “their” pony, assigned to each person for the year. These equine therapy workshops help children, thanks to their bond with the pony, to manage their emotions and gain self-confidence. A specialized educator abounds: “It is a very interesting therapeutic activity for children, which allows them to develop both relational and technical skills.” By technical skills, mean learning balance, improving posture, and better body awareness. The implementation of this project cost 21 718 euros, including 4 303 financed by the Hospital Foundation, which is carrying out the operation.

Another hospital center, another project. In Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, the teams worked on improving the living environment of young people hospitalized, and more particularly by rethinking the entrance to the service: the pediatric emergencies. This is how a forest populated by birds, with its cabin deep in the woods, came to decorate the emergency waiting room, a place where the stress and anxiety of children and parents alike often reaches its peak. paroxysm. “This new pediatric emergency reception space plays a central role in transforming the hospital experience for children and their families, can we read in the press release of the operation. The use of bright colors and animal motifs aims to reassure young patients before the medical visit”. Total amount of the project: 293 000 euros including 96 000 brought by the Yellow Coins.

In Champagne-Ardenne, finally, efforts are currently focused on the mental health of the youngest since the Reims University Hospital has decided to develop, with the support of the Yellow Pieces, a mobile perinatal psychiatry team. This team of caregivers, who can travel to families’ homes, complements the care offering already established by the infant and juvenile psychiatry service, through its “Parenting and Early Childhood Unit”. These caregivers support families in this great upheaval that the arrival of a child and its birth can represent, and then take care of the psychiatric disorders that may be linked to it, such as postnatal depression or denial of pregnancy, for example. The psychosocial or environmental conditions of families can also lead to this type of disorder, making them and their newborns vulnerable.

“The home is a safe place for families. By building the therapeutic framework together, we make families active in their care,” explains Louise, psychologist within the mobile team of the Early Childhood Parenting Unit. The idea is therefore to facilitate the creation of a family-caregiver bond of trust, throughout the territory of the Champagne hospital group.

We cover a large sector, adds the psychologist, including areas where perinatal care is not yet developed. We thus enable prevention and assessment of geographically isolated families.

This project was financed by the Yellow Pieces to the tune of 28,390 euros, out of a total amount of 56,780 euros.

So that the well-being and care of hospitalized children can continue to be improved year after year, know that you can participate in the collection of Yellow Coins by giving small change from the bottom of your pocket, of course, but also by going to your post office to obtain the famous yellow piggy bank to install in a strategic location. Donations can also be made online or by rounding up a receipt in the operation’s partner stores.

Since its creation in 1989, the Yellow Pieces operation has contributed to the financing of 9 800 projects throughout France, or 116 million euros in aid allocated.