How I Read to 170 Hospitals During Quarantine

hi everyone i’m morgan king

and i’m a rising senior at hershey high

school i first wanted to start off by

thanking everyone for coming out tonight

and i also wanted to thank ted youth x

chocolate out for having me speak

it truly is an honor i know you all have

probably heard this more times and you

can count

but covet has truly been a crazy time so

many people have had to transition

whether that be working online or doing

online school we’ve all had to make huge

sacrifices

and with those sacrifices has brought on

a lot of free time

today i want to talk about how i used

that free time and

ended up reading to over 170 different

children’s miracle

network hospitals it all started right

after the shutdown in march

i was at home laying around in my

pajamas

and it was right after school ended and

i was like let’s watch some youtube

even though i had stayed up the night

before till 2am watching cooking videos

um i found this asmr video of someone

reading my favorite childhood book the

little engine that could

when i listened to her i was hit with

such a wave of nostalgia

after classes i decided to go and look

around my house for

all of my old books and when i was

reading them it just

hit me and i it hit me so hard i had to

sit down

i remembered my mom giving me warm milk

and reading me to sleep

and suddenly i had an idea of how to use

this free time

why not read to the kids in hospitals

after school that day

i got on my phone i called the right

people at the hospital and i told them

my idea

eyes wide open and looking back i got

the response i should have expected

i’m sorry unfortunately no visitors are

allowed

i was heartbroken not only for myself

but more so for those kids who were

stuck with no family to visit them and

no enjoyment

it hurt that i wasn’t able to help them

but as i was sitting there wallowing in

my own despair

my dad came in and said quite possibly

the most dad thing ever

you’re always on your phone why not just

do it that way

correction he then said the most dad

thing ever dinner’s in 30 minutes and do

your homework

when i was annoyed that he always was

reminding me

he brought up a fairly good idea why not

do it that way

i first thought that i could just

facetime the kids

but i quickly dismissed that when i

realized it was only one-on-one

and there was no way for them to be able

to re-watch the video if they were

feeling lonely

then i had a better idea why not start a

youtube channel

it had everything i needed easy access

remote possibility that somebody wants

to watch a video at 3am

go ahead and they could re-watch it as

much as possible

because it’s public domain then came the

harder issue of finding somebody to

sponsor me

i asked my dad if he had any contacts

and he gave me one of his associates who

works at penn state

i talked to her picture my idea and she

loved it

we went over some more details how the

channel would work

privacy rights to the books everything

like that

and she was enthralled she told me go

ahead start the channel do

everything you need to do i was amazed

and then she said one more thing you

only have one week to do it

great i threw myself head in first and i

had the eye bags to prove it

i went trying to record every book in my

house and the harder

topic getting the rights to publishing

those books online

but i was able to do it with a lot of

hard work and a lot of begging

then it became the harder issue of

finding more readers

i realized me reading myself while

impactful

it wasn’t as much as i wanted i asked a

few close friends

and then i asked probably my biggest

helper in all this

my brother he sent out his version of

the bad signal

and now i had this whole new wet network

to talk to

it was amazing i expected maybe five

videos by the first week

and i had over 20. i got back to the

person at the hospital and she was

amazed we were both so excited

she told me she was immediately going to

go to his higher-ups and then i had to

do

probably the hardest thing in this whole

process i had to sit

and wait for what felt like an eternity

but in reality was maybe a week max

who knows but finally she gave me the

go-ahead

and ever since then i’ve just been

posting and posting and posting

however now we have over 50 videos from

people

of all different ages genders

ethnicities

we even have people reading in different

languages and while this process

has been extremely rewarding for me it’s

not the amount of likes or

follows or knowing that i personally was

successful in my idea

it’s every time i get a comment or an

email telling me

that i helped them in any way possible

whether it was putting a smile on their

kid or their own face

or just helping them forget their pain

for two or three minutes

that’s what really matters to me

let’s be honest for ourselves with just

two seconds

covet has stunk i mean i don’t get to go

out with my friends

my favorite restaurants i’m not able to

go and eat

but it helped me do something i’ve been

wanting to do for a long time

it helped me get involved and be a part

of my community

and that’s what we all have right now we

have this huge amount of free time

and we always have the chance whether as

an individual

or a part of a community to make a

change before i leave i would like to

leave you with a little quote that

helped me through all of this

in life when we reach our peaks our

mountains our highs

we might feel great but know that

nothing can grow there

it’s in the valleys the lows of life

that we have the chance to do

and make the greatest change going into

this now this school year or this work

here

do something you be that change

do good thank you guys for your time

and please go subscribe to our youtube

channel at children’s quarantine

and if you personally would like to

submit a video email me at reading for

quarantine

gmail.com thank you guys so much