Anna’s Pals Beach House

for Immunocompromised Children

Anna’s Pals Beach House will offer an essential respite from a clinical environment for immunocompromised, pediatric cancer patients and their families, allowing them the opportunity to breathe fresh ocean air and recharge, while connecting with other families who have had similar experiences, and helping to prepare them for the road ahead. 

Anna’s Pals has made significant progress in our mission, assembling the experts and team required to acquire the perfect location for this much-needed destination.

Each year, hundreds of pediatric patients in the Greater Boston area receive transplants, chemotherapy, and other medications that suppress their immune system. It can take six months to a year–sometimes more–for the immune system to work as it should after a transplant. During that time, isolation from the outside world becomes a matter of life and death. Many of the everyday comforts we are all familiar with, from eating watermelon to going on a weekend trip to the lake, are off-limits, adding significant mental stress to the physical challenges they’re undergoing. Anna’s Pals will offer a safe, necessary oasis from these restrictions–a precious harbor in an unimaginable storm. 

This project was inspired by Anna Jerome, a high school student who sadly lost a courageous battle with leukemia, including a bone marrow transplant, in 2014. The isolation Anna experienced after her transplant deeply affected her, and inspired her family’s mission to pursue a solution that would give other patients and their families a respite. 

“Kids like Anna are required to spend countless days and nights in the hospital. When they are not in the hospital, they must still comply with many restrictions to minimize their risk of serious infections and complications. This is an extremely isolating experience for patients, siblings, and parents. Exposures that are routine for others, such as to individuals outside of their immediate family, to mold in the physical environment, to contaminants in food, have the potential to be life-threatening. The requirements are not always obvious or intuitive. It is simply not possible to expect any setting that is not expressly designed or modified for this purpose to maintain the required level of cleanliness and control.” Barbara Degar, MD Attending Physician Department of Pediatric Oncology, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics Harvard Medical School

Anna’s Pals will provide a beach house destination for these families in the Boston area, allowing them to safely gather and connect with others who have shared experiences. Eight wheelchair-accessible beach apartments will be constructed of mold and mildew-resistant materials, have air filtration systems, be staffed with nurses, and maintain the cleanliness requirements that are currently only met in a hospital or clinical setting. Patients and their families can breathe fresh air, gather, and rest. Whether in remission but limited by their immunocompromised state, or preparing for the fight of their life, Anna’s Pals will provide pediatric transplant patients with a necessary respite that they would otherwise be unattainable..

It has been said that BEACH is an acronym for the Best Escape Anyone Can Have. These families will have the opportunity to enjoy one another, create memories, and take photographs that will last forever. The patient and their family will leave refreshed and recharged, ready to face what lies ahead.

The Inspiration for Anna’s Pals Beach House

Anna’s Pals Beach House was inspired by Anna Jerome, who lost a courageous battle with AML, an aggressive form of leukemia, in October 2014.

Anna spent the first six months of her illness hospitalized at Boston Children’s, bolstered by constant visits from friends and family. Shortly after she went into remission, Anna relapsed and underwent a bone marrow transplant. That’s when her battle changed. She was isolated and unable to have visitors due to the loss of her immune system and her inability to fight infection.

Anna missed her family and friends, and the loneliness had a tremendously negative effect on her. It also took a toll on the entire family, requiring all to isolate to keep her safe. Anna craved the beach and the family desperately needed an opportunity to escape, renew, and try to forget that Anna was sick, even if for a little while. But unfortunately for Anna, as for the thousands of children who receive a bone marrow transplant each year, her immunocompromised status meant that an escape from a clinical environment was out of the question.

As this experience demonstrated, there is no safe place for family and friends to gather with fragile, immunocompromised patients like Anna.