By Joseph Itaya
Children HospitalsIn a perfect world, two words you’d never find in the same sentence. But they are. Welcome to reality. A reality never more visceral than when you take an elevator to the dialysis ward at CHLA. Next to you, a mother of three. Of course she’s had to leave two of her children behind to go about their normal life routines. School, then baseball practice. Maybe piano lessons. But not for the child in the elevator today. The child in the elevator offers a much different narrative than her siblings. The child the mother has today is 8 years old. She’s probably adorable. It’s hard to tell with the surgeon’s mask covering her pale, flaxen face. Mom’s hand rests on the stroller the child has long outgrown, but still desperately needs. Walking around can be taxing when your body runs 2 kidneys shy of Nature’s design. The mom doesn’t look you in the eyes, no one does in an elevator. But if she did you’d see the regal bags below them that tell they story of her day. Every other day. Of checking her daughter, voluntarily, into solitary confinement. 3 and a ½ hours per visit. 210 minutes per day. Enough to watch the second hand on the clock, the room’s most animated object, tick 36,000 times. Stuck in a chair. Her body literally plugged into a machine that her life depends on to filter her blood. Ironically, a device she needs to live. Live… Except that’s not what this girl does. Yes, she exists. But this little girl doesn’t live. The life our world provides us, offers us, at every corner. Waterfalls on the Amalfi coast, fog rolling past the Golden Gate Bridge, dancing your heart out as fireworks light up a concert sky – that’s living. Now, thanks to the visionary minds and hearts of the men and women at EVRLAND, the children get their lives back.

EVRLAND’S mission: To utilize Virtual Reality technology in order to transport individuals with limited health and mobility to extraordinary places. To provide hope; the single greatest empowerment of the healing spirit. Joseph Itaya, Founder & CEO of Epicenter VR, Santa Monica California, is setting them free. With groundbreaking storytelling and picturesque cinematography, children are stepping out of the hospital. Experiencing the life they deserve to live. The life we all want them to live. And they’re doing it because… they can. And what better reason is there than that? CLICK HERE TO DONATE or paste the link into your browser: https://www.generosity.com/medical-fundraising/evrland-bringing-virtual-reality-to-hospitals