Ellie’s Happy Heart Room Makeover & Her Journey With Chronic Critical Illness
With the help from these two amazing local artists Kaitlin Ritchie of K8 Creative and Dani Foglein who volunteered their time and incredible talent plus help from so many other generous businesses/ volunteers we undoubtedly followed through on our mission; we delivered an extra dose of happiness to Miss Ellie and her entire family.
The main feature in Ellie’s room is a 7 foot flower mural which took volunteers: Kaitlin and Dani (featured above), who’ve been friends since preschool, over 10 hours to complete.
Despite the many health challenges Ellie has and continues to battle she is the sweetest little girl whose smile will melt your heart and she has spunk too. Her battle with chronic critical illness began before she even learned to walk though and the McElhinney’s spent years searching for answers. At its worst Miss Ellie was having up to 80 seizures a day and last year she even suffered a stroke.
Finally just before her 6th birthday she was diagnosed with mitochondrial disease and soon after that she was diagnosed with another disorder so rare it doesn’t even have a name yet. This nameless condition is responsible for the seizures and it also causes developmental delays too.
Ellie has a cortical visual impairment as well so with that in mind we wanted the mural in her room to be large scale and had our artists add reflective glitter to make it easier for her to see.
Despite everything she has endured and continues to face, this charming girl still shines and brings smiles to the faces of everyone she encounters.
Check out before and after pictures below!
“This room means so much to us...The 2 artists who painted for our girl did such an amazing job bringing our ideas to life! I wish everyone could see it in person because it’s even more beautiful!
The most important thing in all of this is that Ellie loves it!! Having our girl have a room she loves is all we ever wanted. It has brought us so much joy seeing Ellie love her room.”
~Katrina McElhinney, Ellies Mom
The Braedon Foundation was created in memory of Braedon Jacob Beebe Lyon who passed away in 2018 just four months after his 18th birthday.
I’d like to thank Ellie, her entire family and all of our volunteers for helping Braedon’s light shine on and giving us the opportunity to spread Braedon’s kind heart, generosity and good will through his foundation.
It takes a village of awesome humans to bring a Happy Heart Room Makeover to life and we were blessed with a team of incredible volunteers who helped make this room extra special for Ellie. We cannot thank each individual and company enough.
Reach out to these amazing companies and humans for help with you next project and be sure to let them know the Braedon Foundation sent you.
With Sincere Love and Gratitude,
Tiffany Agnew, Always Braedon’s Mom Founder, Board President, Happy Heart Room Makeover Specialist & Coordinator
Meet our Happy Heart Maker Volunteers!
The Braedon Foundation 