Hospital Clowning: Dr. Sneakers

For over 18 years Elizabeth Bolick has performed as Dr. Sneakers for The Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit® and she spent very precious times at the Paul Newman’s Hole in the Wall Gang Camp. She is one of the “doctors of delight” who bring laughter and joy to the bedsides of acutely and chronically ill children. Using juggling, mime, magic and circus arts this troupe of over 90 specially selected and trained Clown Doctors, visit young patients, their parents, siblings and the hospital staff three to six days a week, year round, making over 200,000 one-on-one bedside visits in 17 leading pediatric facilities nationwide.

Elizabeth is currently one of the supervisors in residence at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital in Connecticut where she helped start the program through the generosity of Heidi and Scott Smith and the Garrett B. Smith Foundation.

To make a donation please contact:
The Garrett B. Smith Foundation
c/o Camelot Capitol
3 Pickwick Plaza
Greenwich, CT 06830
203-863-7490

“Ministering to sick children goes beyond the medication and the technology. When a child begins to laugh it means he’s probably beginning to feel better. I see the clowns as healers.”

“We have had the good fortune of having Liz Bolick and Kim Winslow working with our pediatric population both inpatient and outpatient, with parents and hospital personnel. They have built therapeutic relationships with HIV patients that has included Paul Newman’s’ “Hole in the Wall” Camp. They have been a beam of light and magic for children and families who are profoundly affected by the impact of aids on their everyday lives.”
Nancy Morrow, M.S. Child Life Specialist , Montefiore Medical Center, NY