Give Joy
A Decade of Delight — Healthy Humor 10th anniversary gala logo.

10th Anniversary Gala · City Winery, NYC

A Decade of Delight

One night of joy, hosted by Essence Atkins, marking ten years of Red Nose Docs at the bedside.

October 19, 2026

Essence Atkins, emcee of A Decade of Delight.

Thank you to our incredible Gala Sponsors.

A Decade of Delight sponsors: M&T Bank; Vergar; Bloomberg Philanthropies, Children’s Hospital Association, H1 Ventures, KPC, Lore MacDonald, Kyra Tirana Barry, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; NYC Health + Hospitals Harlem, Jennifer May-Reddy, Johns Hopkins Children’s Center; Glasgold Group Plastic Surgery; Julie Kaufman; Feigus Office Furniture.
12partner hospitals
7states
60+Red Nose Docs
500,000+children

Who We Are

We see the child, not the illness.

Healthy Humor is a nonprofit arts organization whose professional performers create moments of joy, wonder, laughter and comfort for hospitalized children and all others who are most in need. Healthcare clowning is a non-pharmacological clinical intervention: it lowers procedural anxiety, improves compliance, and gives a child back some authorship of the day. Our founders have led this field for more than four decades.

Two Red Nose Docs at a patient's bedside.
A small child in a hospital gown reaches for a bubble blown by a Red Nose Doc in a ward corridor.

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What We Do

Joy Is Medicine

A Red Nose Doc plays a ukulele at the bedside as a toddler in a hospital gown reaches out to touch the strings.

Red Nose Docs

Flagship program

Red Nose Docs are professional performers, trained in clinical practice, who work in partnership with hospital care teams. They arrive in pairs, check in with nurses and child life staff before starting their rounds, and adapt each visit to what that child can take part in that day.

The work is improvised but never casual. A visit can defuse a procedure, restore a sense of control, and reframe a memory that would otherwise be defined by fear.

Our Red Nose Docs conduct Clown Rounds at our partner hospitals wherever children are receiving care — from oncology, intensive care, and other inpatient units to emergency departments, outpatient clinics, and everywhere in between.

Explore Red Nose Docs

Additional programming

Real Moments

Meet the kids we visit.

In the words of the children, families, and care teams who were there.

“I forgot I was in the hospital!”
M, age 7Patient
“They are not only magical. They are not only funny. They are not only joyful. They are doctors. They are healers.”
The fatherOf a long-term patient
“It reminded my whole floor what normal feels like.”
Child life specialistPartner hospital

See the work

A visit, from the doorway in.

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