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This is Nick’s fourth appearance at Dance Marathon, and we’re delighted that we made the cut again! Thanks for welcoming us back, for what you’re doing – and what you’re allowing us to support you in doing – is so, so important. To Riley Children’s Hospital, sure, but particularly to the kids and families that Riley serves. And you’ll never, ever know how important what you’re doing is to them, but it’s important nonetheless.
The theme for Dance Marathon this year is camping, and that got me thinking about the summer camps I went to when I was a kid. All of them were church camps, and although some things were expected every year – the familiar fellow campers from my church, the church moms and dads and older teens who served as staff, even the bug juice they served in the dining hall – there was always a note of anticipation going to camp, a sense that camp represented a turning point, a marker for growth or change in perspective or even life trajectory.
Church camps, for instance, always included an altar call of some kind, and I remember becoming born again at least a half-dozen times. New romances blossomed at camp, and old ones sometimes fizzled – even the new ones frequently fizzled by the time camp was over. Challenges were met and overcome – an obstacle course, for instance, or a mountain climb – and yet maybe there were other challenges that couldn’t be conquered…at least until next year.
Going to Riley, in that regard, is a lot like going to camp. You have some idea of what it’ll be like – hospital visits, after all, generally have many things in common – but each visit to Riley is going to be challenging and distressing in a new way because each visit to Riley involves kids: our kids, my kids, the kids you’re meeting here today and their families. There’s nothing routine about going to Riley.
In our case, it was a couple different visits: One, our daughter Margaret, Nick’s older sister, who had a ruptured appendix and a gut full of toxic crud that required immediate intervention to save her life; and, two, Nick himself, when he was only a year old, for open-heart surgery to correct congenital cardiac defects.
I was already a nurse then, but when it’s your kids under fire in such health emergencies, you don’t think or feel like a nurse – you think and feel like a dad, a mom. All I could think about was that we needed help and we needed it fast, and Riley was there for us – for Nick, for Margaret, for our family. And we’re so grateful.
That’s the kind of thing you’re raising money for today, so thank you on behalf of all the kids and families who’ll benefit. Regardless of whether their challenges will be resolved or will require additional encounters into the future, the fact that Riley is there at all offers real hope to our kids, and you’re part of that.
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Nick was privileged to share about his life at the 2026 Saint Mary's College Riley Dance Marathon on Sunday, April 26. The annual event raises funds for Riley Hospital for Children, which provides critical life-saving treatments and healthcare services for kids from our region. For more information or to make a donation, follow this link.
