Miracle Balloons at DQ® bring healing and happiness to kids across North America

As if we needed an excuse to celebrate summer at Dairy Queen® with a sweet treat? DQ® is selling Miracle Balloons now through July 25.

Cool off this summer with a sweet, cold treat and donate to your local children’s hospital while you’re at it! Now through July 25 you can purchase a Miracle Balloon at participating Dairy Queen locations to help kids treated at your local hospital.

Kids like Lilah and Laney. Lilah and Laney are feisty, happy twin sisters who were born with Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome, or TTTS. They also share a diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy, but that is just one aspect of their lives. Because of their condition, Lilah and Laney were born early at just 28 weeks. At the time of their birth, Lilah weighed 3.1 pounds and Laney weighed just over 1 pound. They would spend the next 75 days in the neonatal intensive care unit. “I work in health care, so there’s a part of you that thinks you understand what having a medically complex child would entail,” Emily, the twins’ mother recalls. “But there’s just no preparation or level of knowledge that can show you all that goes into it. It was completely overwhelming at the beginning, and there’s so much uncertainty because you don’t know how your children are going to develop as they get older. “

Laney and Lilah, now 5 years old, are currently thriving. They’re mainstreamed in school with their peers, participate enthusiastically in dance classes and have their whole lives ahead of them. Sure, they face challenges, but in this—and all things—they face those challenges together.

Guests visiting participating Dairy Queen locations can purchase a paper Miracle Balloon to publicly pledge support and get either $3 or $5 in discount coupons good for food or drink on your next visit.

Since 1984, the Dairy Queen system has raised more than $150 million for CMN Hospitals through fundraising efforts including the Miracle Balloon campaign and Miracle Treat Day where $1 or more from every Blizzard® Treat sold at participating DQ locations will benefit local Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals.