Stand with Sonny and His Family

Dear Friends and Family,

We are reaching out to the community to ask for help in supporting Baby Santino 'Sonny' Beaulieu and his parents Denise and Scott. Sonny was born on March 8, 2024, via an emergency c-section at 26 weeks, weighing 1 pound 13 ounces. The first two weeks were critical, but Sonny beat every odd and continued to answer our prayers by getting stronger every day. On March 21st, Mom was finally able to hold her baby boy for the first time, and he was opening his eyes and using a pacifier. Unfortunately, Sonny developed a terrible infection called NEC from the specialized formula he was getting. He survived 3 surgeries in 3 days, removing almost all of his small intestine. From April to June, he underwent a total of 6 abdominal surgeries to try and repair the damage caused by this infection. Since his birth to five months of age, Sonny and his family have lived at Women & Infants Hospital in Providence, RI.

In August, he was transferred to Hasbro Children's Hospital, also in Providence, and his parents finally got the amazing news that they could prepare to bring Sonny home. While the road ahead was paved with challenges, including an IV nutrition line in his chest and a g-tube, Scott and Denise were well-versed in taking care of his special needs by then. Despite these preparations, they were told in September that the doctors now felt that Sonny needed a breathing tube to ensure he was getting the proper oxygen, so in October, he underwent yet another surgery for a tracheotomy. Scott and Denise took this in their usual calm and steadfast way, instead of focusing on the added 3+ months they would now need to stay in the hospital to learn how to care for this new piece of specialized equipment. Very quickly, Sonny encountered his biggest health scare to date; he developed sepsis and went into septic shock due to another infection. This time, the doctors told his parents that he could not come back from the liver damage this caused and they needed to say goodbye. For an entire night, they held their little boy and tried to make peace with it. Sonny beat the odds again and fought his way back! He has now been transferred to Boston Children's Hospital for evaluation to receive a multi-visceral transplant. This surgery will hopefully give him a new liver, pancreas, and small intestine.

After an excruciating 11 months, we are now asking for help from our incredible community. The move to Boston has been a hard one; Scott is no longer able to spend 7 days a week with Sonny because he needs to stay home to work full-time and can only go up on the weekends. Denise is staying at a nearby hotel so that she can be with Sonny, but she is far away from her support system. The cost of living in Boston is high, as you can imagine. When they were in Providence, they were able to stay at The Ronald McDonald House (AMAZING!), but that is not available in Boston. We are raising funds to help with the cost of living as well as trying to get Scott a little more time to be with his family.

This family needs our help more than ever. Please donate anything you are able to; nothing is too small or too big. We are also asking to keep our dear friends in your hearts and prayers. We are keeping the faith for Sonny Strong!

From the bottom of our hearts we thank you,

Friends of the Beaulieu Family