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Elf
Foundation Dedicates Movie Theater
at Cleveland Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital
A-V
Services, ControlWorks, Runco International,
Crestron, M & K, Stewart Filmscreen, and
UltraLink Donate to Elf’s 46th ‘Room
of Magic’ April 3, 2006 – Cleveland,
OH. On a magical afternoon in spring, a very
special group of kids got together to experience
the thrills and adventure of their very own
private entertainment theater. What is so
unique about this magical theater, this Room
of Magic, is that it was created inside of
Cleveland Rainbow Babies & Children’s
Hospital for the express purpose of providing
a sense of relief and fun-filled diversion
for kids in what is often a tedious and traumatic
environment for the sick children who are
stuck in the hospital for treatment.
  
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Thanks to the Elf Foundation, a
non-profit organization that creates Room of Magic
theaters across America, local Cleveland managing
partners A-V Services and ControlWorks
LLC, and a star-studded roster of generous consumer
electronics manufacturers, this magical space
for the kids and their families has become a reality.
The new Room of Magic Theater at Cleveland Rainbow
Babies & Children’s Hospital marks the completion
of the Elf Foundation’s 46th children’s entertainment
theater since the foundation’s July 2001 inception.
“When Tim
Campbell of A-V Services approached
the foundation to offer his design and installation
services pro bono for a theater at Rainbow
Babies, we jumped at the chance to work with
what is one of the country’s leading children’s
medical facilities,” said Doug Weinstein,
president of the Elf Foundation. “We knew
we would want to create something special
and immediately reached out to our top corporate
sponsors to enlist their support for the project.”
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Working
with the full support of Rainbow Babies’ Ms. Meri
Armour, Sr. Vice-President of Women’s, Children’s,
and Cancer Services, the hospital offered a large
conference room space for remodel and installation
of a state-of-the-art movie theater. The theater
will allow kids to watch their favorite DVD’s,
nature films, and educational material all in
a friendly kid-centric environment that will take
them away from the often-sterilized atmosphere
of a hospital setting. Imagine the relief at doing
something so normal as kicking back and getting
to experience a movie night with family and friends,
popcorn on the side ‘thank you very much!’
“This
has been one of the most rewarding projects I’ve
ever been involved in,” said Tim
Campbell, principal of Lakewood, Ohio-based
A-V Services, who acted as the general
managing partner for the project. “The hospital
personnel were terrific to work with, our friends
at ControlWorks and GuiFX lent their support to
the project, and Elf’s corporate sponsors came
through with some great gear that is going to
make a lot of little
kids extremely happy. We’ve all rallied around
the vision of the Elf Foundation and have a sense
of pride at our accomplishment.”
The theater was created
inside of an existing, yet underutilized, conference
room and has a seating capacity of over 40 kids.
The hospital invested over $25,000 in order to
give the space a makeover that would have a bright,
fun feel for the kids. The Elf Foundation assisted
in underwriting the $75,000 theater with tremendous
support from some of their keys corporate sponsors.
 
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Included in the Room of Magic
is a Hi-Definition DLP projector from
acclaimed video display
manufacturer, Runco International. The
projector shoots a wide-screen hi-def
picture onto an acoustically perforated
filmscreen manufactured and donated
by the Stewart Filmscreen Corporation,
a leader in high performance screen
technology. Legacy Audio and M &
K Sound supplied speakers for the surround
sound configuration. Lutron donated
the room’s lighting control system,
and the automation that runs everything
with a simple push of a touch-screen
panel was generously provided by Crestron.
UltraLink donated the wiring and cabling
needs that connect all the dots and
accommodates all of the hi-def signals
going from Point A to Point B.
ControlWorks
LLC of Cleveland, provided an enormous
amount of pro bono man-hours to
handle the Crestron system programming
and on-site system support, and GuiFX
of West Palm
Beach, Florida donated the user interface
template for the Crestron touch panels.
The final result
is a magical theater that sounds and
looks great, with high definition video
and
surround sound performance to excite
and thrill the target audience at Rainbow
Babies. The
culmination of hundreds of man-hours
and generous corporate donations has
resulted in a grand theater experience
that will stimulate, educate and entertain
countless sick children for years to
come. It is a testament to all
involved in this theater project that
Cleveland Rainbow Babies & Children’s
Hospital has decided to permanently
refer to the theater as their “Room
of Magic”.
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