By: Catherine Daleo
Reading time: 4-5 minutes
Critical Care Comics, a local 501(c)3 organization, has adapted their approach to helping the community in response to the pandemic by continuing to brighten the day of children at various hospitals throughout Las Vegas.
Critical Care Comics, started by Jason Golden, a childhood cancer survivor, seeks to bring joy to children in hospitals through the magic of comic books, hand-delivered by their favorite superheroes. Due to the pandemic, C.C.C. hasn’t been able to conduct in-person visits as usual, in order to protest the health and safety of everyone involved in their work. And with the threat of COVID-19, the efforts this organization puts forth for the Las Vegas community is more important than ever.
Michael Mutzhaus, the Chief Operations Officer of C.C.C., also dresses up as Spider-Man in his line of work. He shared that, “[The pandemic] has significantly shifted our operational efforts.”
“In a normal year, we do upwards of 180 various events or efforts, from our six monthly hospital visits, charity walks, fundraising events, and even internal things like sorting our comic collection to be more efficiently handed out,” Mutzhaus said. “We have now looked at ways to help the community at a distance, both for the health of the children we care about as well as our own members.”
On the topic of how the organization has adapted to the pandemic, Mutzhaus went on to say that, “ The first thing we did was donate money and supplies to another non-profit near and dear to us – the Cure 4 the Kids Foundation. They are a facility we would normally visit twice a month under regular circumstances, and they are dedicated to giving children cancer treatment regardless of status.”
“After that, we started donating wagons of toys to the hospitals, while still dressed in costume, to allow the nurses and other specialists receiving the donations to have a brief moment of laughter watching Spider-Man or Wolverine struggle with the med masks and gloves while getting the wagons out,” Mutzhaus said.
He went on to share that their biggest endeavor has been providing meals during Nurses’ Appreciation Week, with the organization having spent nearly $3,000 to “feed the entire staff of the various pediatric units of the facilities we visit.”
Mutzhaus also shared that Critical Care Comics purchased year-long subscriptions to ‘Marvel Unlimited’ and ‘DC Universe’ for each facility, due to the difficulty of donating comic books under the strict health standards.
“We still want kids to have comics, so for now, digital is the way to go!”, Mutzhaus said. “We also donated iPads to facilities that did not already have technology for kids to use these services, as well as to be used for virtual visits.”
On the topic of the virtual visits, Mutzhaus went on to say, “…That has become our new reality for our main mission. We have already conducted about four virtual visits to Cure 4 the Kids, Sunrise Hospital, and Summerlin Hospital, where four or five heroes will jump onto a Zoom chat and talk to kids as the child life specialist takes the technology around.”
“It certainly isn’t our dream scenario, as interacting with kids in person is so different than being on a screen, but we want to do the best we can with the situation,” Mutzhaus said.
Being a non-profit, the Critical Care Comics relies on donations and other forms of support to provide these services to the local community.
“We luckily received back-to-back large donations just months before this all began from Vegas Food and Wine and a joint effort with a YouTuber known as ScottTheWoz,” Mutzhaus said. “However, that will only last so long, so we always encourage people to donate on our website at criticalcarecomics.org.”
Mutzhaus continued by sharing additional ways to help out the organization and their efforts, saying that people can, “donate money, comic books, or their time.”
Those who wish to donate comic books can bring them to specified drop off locations that the organization is partnered with. “They can leave the comics there and the location will inform us of the donation. Just be sure to let them know it is for us and label the box as such,” Mutzhaus said. (See list of locations below.)
Those out of state can also mail comic book donations as media mail to the organization’s P.O. Box at 9811 W Charleston Blvd, Ste 2-767, Las Vegas, Nevada 89117.
On the topic of volunteering, Mutzhaus said, “The most valuable way anyone can help us, of course, is by volunteering their time and energy. If they are a resident of the greater Las Vegas area, they can go to our website, go to ‘how to help’ and click ‘volunteer.’ From there, they’ll be directed to two options: agent or hero.”
Discussing the difference between the two options, Mutzhaus explained that an ‘agent’ is a non-costumed volunteer who helps with things like, “social media, taking photos, sorting the comics and toys, and pulling them on visits for heroes to hand out.
“Not everyone wants to dress up, but we want any hands that can and will help to help us with what we do,” Mutzhaus said.
As for heroes, volunteer applicants must list the hero they want to sign up as, and they need to have their own costume.
“Our basic rule of thumb is to ask yourself if a place like Disneyland would let you use that costume for their park, as we are trying to create an experience and suspend disbelief for kids in these hard times,” Mutzhaus said. “We want them to believe they really met Spider-Man, Batman, Wonder Woman, or whatever other character.”
He went on to state that, “If you think your costume meets that standard, submit it and apply, and if it doesn’t, we can give you pointers on how to improve it to get it ready for what we do. We want to get you out there doing good with us.”
The last couple of months have really been a testament to the organization’s dedication to the community, as well as showing the solidarity held with local hospitals and healthcare providers.
“We respect their need to stay as safe as they can for their patients, and they are doing such amazing work taking care of our city on the frontline right now.” Mutzhaus said. “We appreciate and love our healthcare workers immensely for the work they do.”
Critical Care Comics just celebrated their 8th birthday, having been founded in 2012.
“We’re just so happy that we’ve been able to reach the greater Las Vegas community for that many years, and hopefully many more to come,” Mutzhaus said.
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Please visit criticalcarecomics.org to help support or get in motion with this organization and help bring joy to kids in need.
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Below are the locations you can drop off comic book donations to. Please call the business ahead of time to confirm they are open.
–Maximum Comics (all 3 locations)
–Grouchy John’s Coffee (both locations)
–Rogue Toys (all 3 locations)
–Rollin’ Smoke BBQ (the Highland location)
