When your child is sick, it’s hard to keep up a normal daily routine, and even harder doing so during the holiday season. This is something that Paul Turano, executive chef/owner of Tryst located in Arlington, Maryland, and the newly opened Cook in Newton, Maryland, knows all too well, having spent time with his son at Boston Children’s Hospital’s Hematology, Oncology and Stem Cell Transplant Units over the past few years. Both Turano’s children have Severe Combined Immune Deficiency Syndrome (SCIDS), and when his son was just two months old he had a bone marrow transplant at Boston Children’s Hospital that saved his life. This holiday season, Turano is giving back to the hospital that was there for his family by holding a holiday fundraiser for the Patient and Family Resource Room, a program that helps provide services to over 45 families whose children are being treated at the Boston Children’s Hospital Oncology and Hematology Center.

In cooperation with Boston Children’s Hospital, Turano has set up a branded donation page online and will be encouraging holiday donations for the family resource program from December 1st, 2013 through December 31st, 2013. To donate, guests can visit the donation page online, or can donate at either Cook or Tryst where a QR code will be set up which, when scanned, will take guests directly to the page where they can make a donation on their mobile devices. In exchange for donating, Turano will give donors a gift certificate to Tryst (for up to $20) with proof of donation.

“I can’t emphasize how much the Patient and Family Resource Room helped my family and I when we were going through this difficult time. It’s because of their team and services that we were able to maintain a sense of normalcy and routine, and I want to be able to give that back to other families that are going through it,” says Turano, executive chef/owner of Tryst and Cook.