Meet Evan, the 2019 Arkansas Children’s CMNH Champion

Meet Evan, our 2019 CMN Hospital s Champion for Arkansas Children’s! You will spot Evan in some of our corporate partner locations throughout this year. For starters, keep your eyes open in your local Walmart and Sam’s Club this coming June while you are checking out.

Evan is eleven years old and lives in Fayetteville, AR. He has been a patient at Arkansas Children’s Hospital and Arkansas Children’s Northwest and is no stranger to the caretakers in both facilities.

Over the past couple of years, Evan has served as an Ambassador for Arkansas Children’s Northwest (ACNW). His duties throughout the last several months have ranged from lowering the tallest beam in place on the construction site of ACNW last September to television appearances for the Give Kids a Miracle Telethon raising money for the new pediatric facility on KNWA and Fox 24.

“Evan has such a big heart,” says his mother Amanda Robinson. “When he was a toddler, he attended Kids First starting physical therapy at 2-years-old with a walker. He would walk all around that daycare talking to everyone. Before he graduated from the program the staff referred to him mayor of the daycare.”

Evan served as the 2017 Champion Child for the Will Golf 4 Kids tournament on August 3-4 and Color of Hope Gala on August 4, 2017 benefiting Arkansas Children’s Northwest. Evan was so excited for the pediatric facility to open in January of 2018. In Evan’s words, “I want to dedicate this hospital to the world!”

He and his family, understand the importance of receiving care close to home. When Evan’s mother Amanda was just 20 weeks into her pregnancy, physicians diagnosed Evan with Spina Bifida, a defect effecting the spinal column and Chiara Malformation, a structural defect of the skull that cause the brain to extend onto the spinal column.

Once Evan was born, he was rushed to Arkansas Children’s Hospital for a life-saving surgery closing the hole in his back. For the first few years of his life, Evan would have multiple surgeries including a surgery to provide Evan with a trach and a feeding tube after he had trouble swallowing, one of the side effects caused by the Chiari Malformation.

“Doctors weren’t sure how spina bifida would affect him,” said Amanda.  “It was a waiting game to know what he would be able to do.”

Thanks to donors like you, nine-year-old Evan is an active little boy who walks, swims, loves to fish, canoe, plays baseball for the Miracle League in Springdale, AR and plays with his friends at recess. Despite what many people would view as setbacks, Evan’s positive attitude doesn’t let any obstacle stand in his way.

“He sees something he wants to accomplish, he takes the initiative and he conquers the goal,” says Amanda. “Evan doesn’t have bad days.”

With nearly a decade worth of visits to Arkansas Children’s Hospital, Evan and his family are thankful to receive care close to home now that the doors of Arkansas Children’s Northwest are open.