Sarah’s Sunshine Foundation offers care packages, connection and prayer
After Stephanie Rheinheimer’s youngest child was born at 32 weeks, she spent the next 39 days in a windowless room of the neonatal intensive care unit at Mercy Hospital.
Day after day, Stephanie sat in the room with baby Sarah from morning until evening while her husband, Mark, managed things at home with their six other children. To pass the time, she went to Walmart and bought a big bin of craft supplies.
“Her entire room was covered in some form of construction paper,” she said. “I made a garland for Easter because we were there for Easter. I made birds, I made flowers, I made a big sunshine because there’s no natural light — and I just wanted to be in the sunshine.”
Sarah is now a thriving and smiley 10-month-old, and Stephanie has found a way to continue spreading the light. In August, Stephanie launched Sarah’s Sunshine Foundation, a nonprofit that provides support and comfort to families during NICU stays. “We strive to bring warmth, hope, and a sense of normalcy during a difficult time, ensuring every family feels God’s presence, supported, and valued as they journey through the NICU,” its mission statement says.
On a recent winter evening, the Rheinheimer family’s kitchen counters and table were covered in piles of fuzzy socks, journals, pens, hand lotion, boxes of tea, puzzle books, small crochet kits, candy and more. Stephanie and her older kids walked among the items, putting them into care packages for NICU parents and stuffing bins full of snacks for NICU nurses and staff.
“It’s just something to let them know that you’re not alone,” Stephanie said. “People are praying for you; somebody is thinking about you. You’re not forgotten.”
The foundation collects donations of care package items, largely through its Amazon wish list, as well as gift cards for food and gas and books to establish parent libraries in NICUs. Stephanie is working with Mercy, SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital and St. Louis Children’s Hospital to offer the foundation’s support.
The work is a calling for Stephanie and her family, who are parishioners at the Oratory of Sts. Gregory and Augustine. Toward the end of Sarah’s time in the NICU, Stephanie started feeling a nudge to serve other families in similar situations.
Despite the hardships of a hospital stay, she felt fortunate. They lived locally enough to commute back and forth every day; she didn’t have to go back to work right away. Her fellow parishioners kept their family fed for weeks with a meal train, and good friends continued to check in on her.
Not every NICU parent had the same, she noticed. And even with a good support system, “you get to the point where you feel isolated, you feel forgotten. I mean, it felt like I was sitting in a fish tank for hours a day, like it was my full-time job,” she said. “Everyone else’s life is going on like normal, and you’re the one that’s stuck in this kind of holding pattern.”
After coming home, she was eager to get back to “normal life,” but the Lord’s call continued to come up in prayer. “You know when you pray and you’re like, ‘Oh Lord, I don’t have the spoons in the drawer for what you’re asking me to do right now,’” she said. “We have seven children. We both work full time. We have things going on. Why is this in my heart — please make it go away! But it didn’t.”
“I was talking to two of my good friends about it, and it was just like, I need to do this. This is what I’m being asked to do. We need to be able to give back the blessings that we receive.”
This year, Stephanie hopes to add a larger fundraiser or two to support the foundation’s mission and enable them to care for more NICU families. The foundation also raises awareness by sharing other families’ NICU stories, and visitors are invited to share prayer intentions through the website.
As she assembled care packages that evening, Stephanie wore a sweatshirt purchased from fellow NICU mom Leah Darrow, a Catholic speaker and former America’s Next Top Model contestant who spent more than six months in the NICU after her son Sylvester was born at just 22 weeks. “In my NICU era. Romans 8:28” was embroidered on the chest.
“And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose,” the verse reads.
>> Sarah’s Sunshine Foundation
Learn more: sarahssunshinefoundation.org
Amazon wish list: stlreview.com/4ajC0Aw
