PORTLAND, Maine - Maine Medical Center has announced a new source of funding for its "hospital-based teacher" program. Dunkin' Donuts owners have pledged to raise a quarter of a million dollars to endow the position, currently held by Abby Snyder.
"For the most part, kids and their parents are absolutely delighted to meet me, to see me, to know that my classroom exists," she said at a press conference. "Because that is their normal; that is their identity, their routine, their life outside the hospital."
Snyder and one of her former patients, Riley Robertson, talked with reporters today about the program. Riley credits it with bringing a sense of normalcy to a very abnormal situation.
Snyder, the teacher, has a small resource room on the sixth floor of the Barbara Bush children's hospital, and also works with kids in their hospital rooms.