Learn more about:

• What Streetlight Involves
• How it is Funded
• Our Mission Statement

What it Involves

We have an expression we use in Streetlight (borrowed from a line in a U2 song): "We get to carry each other."  The key is the word 'get.' 

It is not that we have to carry each other -- It is more like a privilege.  If we have good health, it is not only a responsibility, but it is also an honor to 'carry' someone who does not have good health.

All of our adolescent patients need support, but some are going through a tougher health transition than others:  a relapse, a lung transplant, a new diagnosis, a poor prognosis. Some have strong family and peer support. Some have “thin” family and peer support, and some have no support at all. We get to know the patient and then try to meet his or her specific needs, which can be quite different from the teenager two doors down.

We have a team of 50+ college students, mostly pre-med, who divide up into nine different shift-teams that serve afternoons and evenings, five days a week. Whether working the Teen Lounge or doing room visitation, they are about building relationships and doing so under extreme and sometimes difficult situations. 

Is it forced?  Sure it is. Most teens in the hospital are buried under pillows and blankets, blinds drawn, TV too low to hear, with a cell phone at their bedside that does not ring often enough. They aren't looking to make new friends in the hospital.  They just want to get out and be with their old friends. But in so many cases their peers move on, or are far away, and the vacuum this creates cannot be filled by even the most wonderful mom and dad. 

The beauty of Streetlight is that companionship is offered by people close to their own age, who 'get' it - pop culture, sports, a boyfriend who doesn't call, a bad hair day, a no-hair day, and a loving parent who hovers.

We call it "The Power of Peers".

How it is Funded

Streetlight is completed funded through outside donations and community support.  Most of the teen movies and video games come through generous donations from UF and high school students, as well as monthly donations from Blockbuster.  Most of our support is through individual donors or organizations that have a heart for adolescents dealing with cancer, Cystic Fibrosis, transplants, and other chronic illnesses.  We feel fortunate to have the financial support we do - that somehow they find us and we find them.  Everything we do is because someone has believed in the Streetlight mission.

Learn how you can support Streetlight and donate online.

Our Mission Statement

To meet the non-medical needs of adolescents and young adults (YADs) through consistent and daily companionship with a team of trained college students.  Streetlight attempts to normalize their environment through room customization, personal laptops, diversion, evening teen lounge, identity door profiles, and hospital friends that provide support through difficult transitions.  Shands already provides the best medical care available to them.  Streetlight is committed to meeting the unique psycho-social-spiritual needs of the adolescent/YAD, which if un-addressed can lead to intensified pain and a poorer response to medical treatment.