Ida Jane’s Boo-Boo Babies:
Pennsylvania woman brings plush comfort to the sick
By Jason P. Reagan, The Layman, March 28, 2011
Compassion can take on many shapes and textures. But for one Pennsylvania woman, compassion and care for the sick is as simple as a stitch and fabric.
Retired teacher Ida Jane Prunty has spent the last several years making plush comfort dolls for local hospital patients.
A resident of Monongahela, Prunty began making the faceless, plush dolls, dubbed “Boo-Boo Babies” after she read an article in her local newspaper about an auxiliary project at Monongahela Valley Hospital designed to put homemade dolls in the hands of hospitalized children as a means of comfort. 
Ida Jane Prunty’s Boo-Boo Babies
“I knew that it was something I wanted to have a part in,” Prunty said.
“It was a way that I could use my God-given talents to help a child who was facing an unknown and perhaps a scary procedure,” she added.
As the program evolved, volunteers expanded their radius of caring, giving Boo-Boo Babies to adult patients as well.
Patients facing cancer treatment or suffering from dementia receive the soft reminders of caring and hospital officials and family members have seen therapeutic results.
“A teacher friend told me that her mother-in-law, who has dementia, was in the hospital and was given a Boo-Boo Baby. She named it and has taken it home with her,” Prunty said.
A typical Boo-Boo Baby is about 12 inches tall and 9 inches wide. Prunty produces about 45 per month and says she wishes she could make more. As an active substitute teacher, Prunty finds opportunities to introduce local students to the project.
“There have been times that the students in the classes help me if they have their work done,” she said.
Not content to offer only unadorned dolls, Prunty personalizes her Boo-Boo Babies by using seasonally appropriate fabric for various special days like Christmas, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day and Easter.
But in Pennsylvania, holiday sentiment takes a back seat to pigskin mania.
“The quickest to move are the ones that I take up toward the end of the football season made of Steelers fabric,” Prunty said.
“I only do this once a season because the cost of licensed material is so high,” she said adding that she often finds 50-percent-off discounts at local fabric stores that allow her to make more Babies as well as fabric donations from friends and family.
“I get six Boo-Boo Babies from one yard of fabric,” she said.
Boo-Boo Babies represent more than just stuffed fabric to Prunty. They represent a tangible way to show compassion to the sick.
“As I finish up each Boo-Boo Baby, I print somewhere on it ‘I Love You’ so the person knows there is someone out there thinking about them as they are cared for on this trip to the hospital,” she said.
“As long as this ministry of caring helps someone, I will be making Boo-Boo Babies,” she said.