Purvi Shah’s son Amaey was just 3 when he was diagnosed with leukemia in 2005, transforming his young life from preschool and playdates to hospital visits and isolation.
Shah, a creative director, turned to art for solace, first for herself and then for Amaey and his older brother, incorporating interests like LEGOs and Hot Wheels into art projects.
“He had to pretty much be quarantined at home, so it just became our little adventure. Whatever he was into, we would make it into art,” says Shah, who lives in San Mateo.
Shah started bringing art projects to fill the seemingly endless hours in the waiting rooms of Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. “That was the only thing I had in my control. … We knew there was a start and an end (to an art project), because nothing in our life had that anymore.” Soon, other children in the hospital wanted to join in, and Shah welcomed them.
Then she began running half marathons to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, now called Blood Cancer United, and hosted a fundraiser at Pixar headquarters, where her husband worked, bringing together local artists and 15 pediatric cancer patients. The fundraiser was a huge success, and Shah assumed that would be the end of it.
“But then I started getting emails from the artists and from the families who joined asking, when is the next one?” she recalls. It was the spark that led her to found the Burlingame-based Kids & Art Foundation in 2008.
The Spark Leads to a Legacy
Amaey passed away at age 9 after a 6-year battle with cancer, but his legacy has lived on through the nonprofit, which now offers programs in 27 hospitals nationwide, sending art kits around the country and providing artists in residence at Lucille Packard, Kaiser Oakland and the George Mark Children’s House, a pediatric palliative care facility in Castro Valley. It also hosts destination workshops like the original one at Pixar and provides age-specific at-home art kits directly to families, a Covid-area pivot that helped the organization reach even more patients.
In 2025, Kids & Art provided nearly 6,800 art kits to patients with pediatric cancer and other chronic conditions and had nearly 1,200 patients and siblings participate in workshops. The art kits it provides include all the materials and instruction needed for a project, as well as enough for siblings to join in. “The siblings are the silent victims, the silent warriors in this fight,” Shah says.
Shah, who stepped down as the foundation’s CEO in 2023 but remains on its board, remains passionate about the healing power of art. “It definitely helped us, psychologically and emotionally, keeping us all together,” says Shah, who is now a play and wellness coach.
The Power of Art
While borne of her family’s own experience, there’s an increasing amount of research backing that up, showing that art reduces anxiety and lessens pain, including during procedures, and increases connection, giving families “a shared activity that isn’t centered on illness,” Shah says. It also “creates legacy and meaning” when families can hold on to art created by children who don’t survive.
“We don’t see the cancer … in the art,” Shah says. “It’s the joy. It’s the beauty. It’s the togetherness. We see moments that we spent together, not moments that were painful.”
In Kids & Art’s own evaluation of its art kits, 87 to 92% of participants said it decreased their stress and anxiety, elevated their mood, encouraged creativity and confidence, and increased engagement.
“The entire environment in the waiting room was so positive when we were there,” Shah says. “The medicine, the procedures, the hospital is really causing a lot of anxiety and pain. We are helping them with reducing all of that, even if it’s for an hour. And that is OK because that hour will change the momentum and the trajectory of how they take the next hour.”
“I would always say that, you know, research will help someday, but we’re helping them now,” Shah says. “People don’t realize what a huge impact this is. … You create art and create this beautiful, happy, joyful, messy life for them, and that’s what you need to give them, right?” Shah says. “It really helps. … Art heals.”
In honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month this month, Kids & Art is hosting Chalk2Heal, a sidewalk chalk event at Sunset Dunes Park at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach on Sept. 26 from 12-3pm. For more information, visit kidsandart.org.
Janine DeFao is an associate editor at Bay Area Parent.
