Donations to hospital fulfill young woman’s wish
Frank Elchert remembers his joy turning to devastation the day doctors told him and his wife, Michele, that their newborn daughter had a complex heart condition that would likely take her life within six months.
Amber Louise Elchert proved them wrong.
She underwent three heart surgeries by the time she was 18 months old, graduated from Pen Argyl High School in 2009 and went on to study at Muhlenberg College, where she earned a degree in psychology in 2013. She had hoped to continue her studies at the University of Pennsylvania and fulfill her dream of counseling children with terminal illnesses.
But Amber died in October 2013, a few months after her graduation from Muhlenberg, outliving the doctors’ prediction by 22 years.
She told her parents, “I want you to help other kids like me after I’m gone,” said her father, Frank Elchert.
That’s exactly what the Elchert family has continued to do for the last several years since starting the Amber Louise Elchert Foundation. On Saturday morning, the foundation bought $10,000 worth of toys from the Lower Nazareth Township Target that they will donate to children hospitalized this Christmas at Lehigh Valley Reilly Children’s Hospital.
In total, they will give nearly $20,000 worth of toys to the hospital, including some given before Saturday’s shopping spree, as part of the “Operation Amber” Christmas toy drive.
The toys will be wrapped by hospital staff and given to children and families who are at the hospital over the holidays and for months later, said Vanessa Gramm-Mackey, a certified child life specialist at LVHN.
“We are looking forward to creating a sense of normalcy when everything is so much harder for our families,” Gramm-Mackey said. “Due to these unforeseen challenges we have all faced this year, we are grateful to have a returning donor such as Operation Amber.”
Amber was in the hospital for many holidays, so her family knows the impact it can have on a child.
“Christmas is the greatest time of year for a kid. It’s like Thanksgiving, Halloween and your birthday all wrapped up into one. It’s earth-shattering when you can’t be part of it,” Frank Elchert said. “The family, the food you eat, the holiday cookies — all the things you share with your family are interrupted when you go to the hospital.”
Parents will need to split their duties between home and the hospital, and it may be difficult to buy gifts at all, Elchert said.
“If we can take care of a little bit of that for them and at least help them add a smile to their children’s faces, it’s all worth it,” he said.
In addition to LVHN, The Amber Louise Elchert Foundation, which was started in October 2016, has also provided toys to Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where Amber received muchof her treatment. The foundation has donated more than $43,000 worth of gifts to LVHN, not including this year’s haul, Elchert said.
This will be the fourth year giving to LVHN, which was chosen because of Amber’s life in the Lehigh Valley.
Amber was only 3-feet-8inches tall, her stature stunted by a protein-losing condition as a result of her heart problem. Though she was small, Amber was a firecracker, riding around on her bright pink motorized scooter, Elchert said.
Her family was shocked when more than 400 people attended her funeral in 2013. Some shared stories about Amber’s kindness and how she comforted peers who were bullied in school.
Frank Elchert, who works in product management as his main job, is also a Catholic deacon who counsels grieving families who have lost a child. The foundation helps about 400 children a year. In addition to Christmas presents, it also provides care packages to hospitalized children and their families, scholarships for disabled children to continue their education and up to 26 weeks of grief counseling.
About two weeks after Amber’s death, Frank Elchert asked God, “What do I do with all this love I have stored up in my heart?”
“The answer was, give it away,” he said. “It’s not meant to hold on to. It’s meant to share with other people. I share the exact same love I had for my daughter with every special needs kid and parent.”