A new hospitality cart for pediatric patients launched March 17 at F.F. Thompson Hospital in Canandaigua.
The program, called the “Thompson Trolley,” will serve children in multiple areas of the hospital through a partnership involving Thompson Health, Ronald McDonald House Rochester and the Maddie B. Childhood Cancer Foundation.
The cart will provide snacks, drinks, toys and books to pediatric patients and visiting children. It will be based in the hospital’s Emergency Department, which recorded about 3,100 pediatric visits in 2025.
Volunteers will also bring the trolley to the Surgical Care Center, which performs about 300 pediatric surgeries each year, and to the Birthing Center, where nearly 800 babies were delivered last year.
Items from the cart will be distributed elsewhere in the hospital as needs arise.
The Maddie B. Childhood Cancer Foundation is supplying toys and books for the trolley. The organization was founded in memory of Madison Barthelmes, who died in 2023 at age 6 after a year-long battle with acute myeloid leukemia.
“The thing I remember most was it made Maddie happy, and it made her a little more comfortable,” her father, John Barthelmes, said.
“We’re not going to give up that fight and we’re not going to give up her memory,” he said. “No matter what the child is going through, having a toy is going to make a big, big difference, and for the parent, that makes a big, big difference.”
The trolley will be staffed by volunteers from Ronald McDonald House Rochester and supported by funding from the Paychex Charitable Foundation.
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