Cokie Roberts Cares about Kids! | NIH MedlinePlus the Magazine

Cokie Roberts Cares about Kids! NIH MedlinePlus the Magazine

As a Board member of The Children’s Inn, journalist Cokie Roberts takes a personal interest in the sick children and their families who experience the Inn’s healing environment while receiving groundbreaking medical treatments at the NIH.
Photo The Children’s Inn

Award-winning journalist supports children’s health research

As a cancer survivor treated at the National Institutes of Health, well-known journalist and news analyst Cokie Roberts is acutely aware of the importance of clinical medical research. And as a longtime member of the Board of The Children’s Inn at the NIH, she knows first-hand the daily struggle families face caring for a seriously ill child.
“Anyone who is a parent knows the heart-stopping sense of terror you feel when a child is sick or runs a high fever,” says Roberts. “Knowing how incredibly difficult their journey is makes it easy to support the Inn.”
Situated adjacent to the Clinical Center on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Md., The Children’s Inn is a residential home for seriously ill children and their families known as the “place where hope lives.” Children come from across the country and around the world to stay together with their families while receiving groundbreaking medical treatment at the Clinical Center.
The Inn was founded more than 20 years ago as a private, non-profit organization. Dr. John I. Gallin, M.D., Director of the NIH Clinical Center, is the Inn’s longtime Clinical Advisor. More than 10,000 children have stayed at the Inn from all 50 states and more than 80 countries. Families stay together with their children and pay nothing, no matter how long they need to stay. The Inn’s mission is to allow kids to be kids, at least briefly, between the pokes and prods at the hospital. Here, they can play the piano, read a book, shoot baskets outside on the lighted Sports Court or enjoy a family dinner.
Familiar to millions as a senior news analyst for National Public Radio and commentator for ABC News, Roberts also is a best-selling author. But families at The Inn know her simply as a friend and passionate advocate for their children’s health.
“Every child who comes to the NIH participates in research that may lead to lifesaving treatments,” says Roberts. “These brave and beautiful children are helping all of us.”

Cokie Roberts: A History of Service

Cokie Roberts is a senior news analyst for NPR News, where she was the congressional correspondent for more than 10 years. In addition to her work for NPR, Roberts is a political commentator for ABC News, providing analysis for all network news programming.
In her more than 40 years in broadcasting, she has won countless awards, including three Emmys. She has been inducted into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame, and was cited by the American Women in Radio and Television as one of the fifty greatest women in the history of broadcasting.
In addition to her appearances on the airwaves, Roberts, along with her husband, Steven V. Roberts, writes a weekly column syndicated in newspapers around the country by United Media. The Roberts are also contributing editors to USA Weekend Magazine, and together they wrote From this Day Forward, an account of their more than 40 year marriage and other marriages in American history. The book immediately went onto The New York Times bestseller list, following Roberts’ number one bestseller, We Are Our Mothers’ Daughters, an account of women’s roles and relationships throughout American history.
Roberts holds more than 20 honorary degrees, serves on the boards of several non-profit institutions and on the President’s Commission on Service and Civic Participation. This year the Library of Congress named her a “Living Legend,” one of the very few Americans to have attained that honor. She is the mother of two and grandmother of six.

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