YAB Member Reflection: Kelly Couvreur (EGR '22)

One of the most impactful and rewarding experiences I have ever had is being able to serve on the Youth Advisory Board for Billy Bear Hug. This is a board composed of high school students from all over West Michigan working together to provide comfort and support in the form of a teddy bear and cub kit for kids who are faced with critical illnesses. 

This year, with COVID-19, our events and face-to-face (or lack thereof) interactions with the kids were very limited, so we had to get creative. We created individual kits for each of the children, and have a contactless drop off to different coordinators.. 

The most rewarding experience I had this year was creating Easter craft kits for the children at the Children’s Healing Center. We made paper plate Easter bunnies and little chicks out of clothespins. I remember putting all the materials together and then putting them in a zip lock bag and piling them up. 

About a week later, we recieved pictures of kids with their craft kits and doing the crafts. It brought tears to my eyes to know that something that I put together and worked on brought so much joy and so many smiles to these children, making their day just a little brighter. That is something I will never forget about is the feeling I had when I saw how much these children were going through but how a simple Easter craft kit could bring them so much happiness. 

Another rewarding experience that I had this year back in the fall was doing a drive-by birthday parade for a boy named Aaron. We all met in a parking lot to decorate our cars, put marker paint on the windows and then left for his neighborhood to drive by and say Happy Birthday to him. When we turned onto his street he was standing with his parents and the look on his face was something I will never forget. Another action that was so seemingly simple to us, but you could tell made all the difference to him. We dropped off the gifts that we had for him and he was so appreciative and shocked of what was going on. It made me feel very grateful and feel how fortunate I am, and how happy I was to see the look on his face knowing that he was in full shock of what was happening just for him! 

I never knew that some of the most rewarding experiences of my life would come from serving on the Youth Advisory Board for Billy Bear Hug, but I am so proud to say that I am a part of this amazing organization surrounded by some of the best high schoolers in West Michigan, all of us working together to provide the cure of comfort for these children.