San Diego Zoo Global Friday expanded its closed-circuit adventure TV channel for kids to Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Hospital in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
The San Diego Zoo Kids channel is funded by South Dakota businessman and philanthropist T. Denny Sanford and designed for pediatric hospitals and clinics. According to the zoo, the channel will feature entertaining and educational shows about animals, including those from the Baton Rouge Zoo.
The channel will also include video content from the San Diego Zoo, featuring San Diego Zoo Global Ambassador Rick Schwartz and San Diego Zoo Kids hosts Olivia Degn and Michelle Myers. Patients will have access to video encounters with animals, quizzes about animals and their natural habitats and best-of videos from the San Diego Zoo’s panda cam.
“We know that kids in the hospital feel better and heal faster when they turn their attention from the discomfort of their health challenges and focus instead on something that engages the mind and stimulates the imagination,” said Dr. Trey Dunbar, president of Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Hospital. “We look forward to seeing the many smiles this new program brings to our amazing kids’ faces.”
The zoo launched the channel at Rady Children’s Hospital in 2013. With the expansion to Baton Rouge, San Diego Zoo Kids programming is now broadcast in 198 children’s hospitals and Ronald McDonald Houses in 38 states, the District of Columbia, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Pakistan, Qatar and Curacao.
“We continue to be humbled by the healing properties of San Diego Zoo Kids,” said Debra Erickson, San Diego Zoo Global’s director of communications. “Parents and caregivers share that the channel, which has no commercials or inappropriate content, not only calms children but makes them happy.”
–City News Service
