Lifting the spirits of hospitalized children through the magic of first run films
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Founder
Jessica Angel
President & Founder, Reel Angels
At the age of 21, Jessica Angel founded Reel Angels after gaining inspiration from a trip to Africa and her volunteer work at Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital (LLUCH). During a semester off from college, where she was studying communication with the intent of making a career in the entertainment industry, Jessica traveled to Kenya to work with an organization setting up orphanages. She returned to Los Angeles, and eventually her volunteer work at LLUCH, certain of one thing - she wanted to dedicate her life to helping people.
While working as a waitress at night and spending days at the hospital, Jessica met a little boy named Timmy who, at age 7, was fighting a brave battle against leukemia. On each occasion she visited with him, Jessica would find Timmy wearing his favorite Spider-Man pajamas. One day, he told Jessica with sadness that he wouldn’t be able to leave the hospital to see Spider-Man 2. She learned from his family that, because of his weakened immune system, it was too dangerous for Timmy to visit a crowded movie theater. Realizing how few “normal” activities seriously ill children get to experience, and that time is tragically not on their side, the seed that would become Reel Angels was planted.
In 2004, Jessica began working for Mulberry Square Releasing, the distributor of the Benji movies, and started brainstorming with colleagues, family members and friends about how to make Reel Angels real. For her, going to the movies has been a long-standing family tradition, and for as long as she can remember, Jessica has loved the ability that good films have to transport an audience into a world outside its own. Motivated by the courage of Timmy and all the brave and loving children that she had met, and determined to underscore how special they are, Jessica persuaded a number of entertainment executives to join her in helping sick kids experience a bit of normalcy in their lives. She went on to convince a studio to give them a chance to escape what they shouldn’t have to be facing in the first place.
In April of 2005, the inaugural Reel Angels event was held in Los Angeles.
Jessica currently works for Loma Linda University Medical Center as a Volunteer Coordinator. Having found a way to combine her love for kids and movies, she has over eight years of experience in the entertainment industry, and is now taking a break to spend some time on the other side of Reel Angels, in the healthcare industry.