Meet Siena Dancsecs | Co-Founder, Vice President and Texas Chapter Coordinator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Siena Dancsecs and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Siena, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?
Being in a hospital at any age can be scary, but especially as a child. Children’s hospitals are designed to be more fun and playful, but the patient rooms are still designed to be blank and sterile. Once Upon a Room provides personalized hospital room makeovers for pediatric patients facing long-term stays in the hospital across the county. Our goal is to make each of our patient’s feel more at home and at ease during their hospital stay. We want each of them to be recognized for who they are, rather than their diagnosis. When you are in a hospital, you are often identified by your diagnosis, and as a child, this can be really difficult. Children are meant to be in colorful environments, surrounded by their favorite toys and activities. We create personalized name banners, pillows and tote bags to go in each room so that when someone walks in, they know who that child is and what their interests are. The impact that Once Upon a Room has on a patient is incredible. Not only does it change the course of their hospital stay, but it also effects everyone around them. It helps their families to feel more at home, their visitors to feel more at ease and the medical staff to feel more comfortable when interacting with the child. It also has a profound effect on our volunteers, as they have the unique opportunity to be hands-on with the patients and see in an instant how it positively changes their demeanor. Each room dec is a complete surprise to the patient, and everything we give to them is theirs to keep. Parents will often chase OUR volunteers down the hallways of the hospital to show pictures of how their child has re-decorated their room at home with their new decor. OUR is rapidly expanding to children’s hospitals across the country, changing the lives of more patients, families and volunteers.

I want to share a story from our FTW Chapter. in 2022, we decorated a NICU room for Tillie Jo. Two of our Chapter Leads, Sofia and Helaina, went in to decorate Tillie Jo’s room while her parents stepped out so they could be surprised. Her theme was cactus’ and her favorite colors were peach and teal. While her parents stepped out, Sofia and Helaina completely transformed her room into a peach/cactus nursery, complete with personalized name signs and pillows. When her parents walked-in, they are so grateful and excited. This was their daughters first “bedroom” and “nursery.” The space was personalized to her, and felt more like a baby’s room. Her parents cried tears of joy with our volunteers. It was a truly special experience! Over the course of her Tillie Jo’s stay, our volunteers loved stopping by her room to see her decor still put up. The hospital staff absolutely adored her room and said it really made a difference. OUR has been lucky enough to follow Tillie Jo’s story ever since and volunteers will forever remember her room dec.

What should our readers know about your business?
When Josie, Jenny and I started OUR, we thought that we would do about 50 rooms per year at our flagship hospital (CHLA). In our first year, we did 110. By our second year, we had launched at 2 more hospitals. Now, nine years later, we are in 25 hospitals and have decorated over 5,000 rooms. Running a non-profit is no easy feat, but the smiles on our patients’ faces keep us going. We are solely run by volunteers at each of our locations, many of whom are moms or college students. All of our teams are fantastic, and it has been a privilege to get to know each and every one of them. Our volunteers are selfless; they put our patients first always. Our work is time consuming between the shopping, crafting, organizing and decorating, but it is all worth it. It is Josie and I’s dream to someday have a program in all 50 states. We believe that every child in the hospital should have their room decorated.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I started Once Upon a Room with my best friend, Josie, and her mom, Jenny, in 2014. Josie was born a head-conjoined twin and was successfully separated from her sister at one year old. Over the course of her life, she has had many long-term stays in the hospital. When we were 12 years old, she and her mom had the idea to help others in the same situation. They shared their idea with me and from that moment on, Once Upon a Room was born. Josie and Jenny inspire me each and everyday to continue to spread our mission to touch even more children’s lives. They are truly the strongest people that I know. They were the inspiration that led me and my 3 best friends/college roommates (Ariana, Sofia and Helaina) to start an OUR chapter in our college town at Cook Children’s Medical Center. When I started TCU in 2020, I knew that I wanted to continue OUR from afar, but I wasn’t sure how. With the help of Ariana, Sofia and Helaina, we launched our program at Cook Children’s and have the unique opportunity to expose our peers and TCU community to our work. We are inspired each day by Josie’s strength and passion to help others.

Website: www.onceuponaroom.org

Instagram: @onceuponaroom @onceuponaroomftw

Facebook: Once Upon a Room

Image Credits
Image Credit: John Michael Filippone