Donating old movies might not be a ground-breaking concept, but it once helped College freshman Berni Barta garner the President’s Volunteer Service Award. Most recently, it helped get her nominated for L’Oreal’s Woman of Worth award.
In spring 2002, Barta and her sisters gave their used movies to a hospitalized friend to help her pass the time. During their visit to the hospital, they realized that children often asked for movies during their stay.
The child-life specialist on staff that day told Barta that hospital stays can often be boring or even scary experiences for children and, since many are alone for most of the day, films alleviate some of the stay’s loneliness.
“That inspired us to collect more movies to donate to more hospitals,” Barta said, “because we realized that they really can make a difference.”
Kidflicks started as a simple idea. The goal was to donate 100 movies to every hospital in her Los Angeles neighborhood.
The initiative received tremendous support.
Gradually, Kidflicks grew from a project between family and friends to community drives. It eventually reached a point where strangers would contact Barta and her sisters to make donations and to ask tips on starting their own drives. At one point, even Warner Brothers got involved in the charity, sending a Tweety Bird mascot to personally deliver the films.
With this support, Barta’s local project expanded nationally. To date, Kidflicks has donated 55,500 movies to 555 hospitals in all 50 states and four in South Africa.
Despite the current reach of the project, Barta noted that her fondest moment with Kidflicks was during the initial years when she could personally deliver the movies to the hospitals.
Children “were just so happy to receive the movies,” Barta recalled. “Their faces would light up.”
To Barta, a personal delivery means more than just bringing a child’s favorite movie — it is an opportunity to talk and relate to the children she’s helping.
“It was just really great to have that interaction,” Barta said.
Barta is currently nominated for L’Oreal’s Woman of Worth award and is trying to rally voters’ support to win the $25,000 grand prize.
The sisters plan to use the prize money to fund shipments of future donations as well as provide DVD and VCR players for under-equipped hospitals.
Looking back on the success of Kidflicks, Barta said the experience has been “surreal.” When she received the President’s Volunteer Service Award from former President George W. Bush in January 2008, she “could not believe it was happening.” It was then she realized that her family project had really grown to something much bigger than she had expected.
Ultimately, Barta attributes the success of Kidflicks to the simplicity of her idea and the support she had from family and friends, as well as people across the nation.
“We could not do it alone,” she said.
