LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A Little Rock architectural firm is putting heart and compassion into its latest project. Literally, by creating a heart cart for Arkansas Children’s Hospital.
If you walk into Polk Stanley and Wilcox Architectural Firm, you’ll see images of luxury buildings that architects there have designed.
But, the latest project comes on a much smaller scale, one that will serve a bigger purpose.
"Most of the time we are designing buildings,” said Wendell Kinzler, architect. “The whole mission here is out of compassion.”
Arkansas Children's Hospital has been a long time client of the firm.
“They’ve been a great client, so we thought this project would be an opportunity to give back,” said Kinzler.
They thought up the idea of the heart cart, etched it on paper, then turned it into a 3-D rendering.
"It's different than any other typical cart you might see in a hospital,” said Kinzler.
It was designed with two distinct shapes pieced together with love and bright colors.
"Giving and receiving, you have to have both of those same with this cart you have to have both objects come together to make it work,” Kinzler.
The cart comes handy for an ACH need. It’ll serve families of sick children.
"Those parents are here, and they are focused on their children so much it's really easy as parents to let ourselves go,” said Jodi McGinley, Parent Partner with ACH. "Sometimes we forget to eat, sometimes it's the simple things like brush our teeth.”
Stopping from one room to the next, the multi-functioning cart will be spread out through the entire hospital.
On board, it'll have toiletries of all sorts, food, and drinks available for parents to grab and go so they don't have to leave their sick child's bedside.
“This is giving them an opportunity to go to the cart take that moment just for them and say you know what I haven’t eaten dinner or I haven't eaten in the past 24 hours. There's a snack waiting on me,” said McGinley.
Arkansas Children's Hospital has not released a set date for the cart’s completion.
Naboholz is partnered with Polk Stanley and Wilcox to build the cart, and the process is moving rather quickly.