As a pediatric nurse, Lyndsee Wunn has learned to compartmentalize.

If not, it would be hard to get through her 12-hour shifts on the fourth floor of Randall Children’s Hospital at Legacy Emanuel.

There she administers care to children battling cancer and struggling with heart defects. Often, parents keep bedside vigil to offer love, encouragement and simple moments of tenderness -- in many ways as important to the child as what the doctors with all their science and medicine provide.

And then there are the foster children.

“It’s more horrific than anyone can imagine,” said Wunn, a nurse for 15 years. “Kids are going to foster care every day all over the city. But the ones who come to a hospital for medical treatment have been abused and neglected.”

These children, alone in a hospital room with nothing and no one, unsettled the unflappable nurse who long ago had learned guard her heart during long shifts on the floor.

“The fear and sadness and desperation in those eyes is something you can never forget,” she said. “I wondered who would step up to let them know they matter and that they are loved.”

That’s how this project of hers began.

Not from the head.

But from the heart.

***

Wunn’s husband, Geoffrey, a pediatric nurse at OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital, saw similar kids during his shifts. Six years ago, the two agreed they wanted to do something to help.

Although they had a son, Landon, now 8, the couple got state certification to become foster parents. The need for foster families is so great that four days after being approved, they were asked by an Oregon Department of Human Services caseworker if they’d take Cooper, a drug-addicted infant born in a Portland-area hospital. The couple fostered Cooper, now 6, for more than 18 months and then adopted him when the boy’s parents relinquished their rights.

With their careers and full family, the couple decided they could no longer commit to being foster parents. But it wasn’t easy for Wunn to let go.

At the end of her shifts, Wunn would return home and think about those foster kids back on the fourth floor. Wunn remembered the chaotic day their foster baby, now their son, arrived in their home with nothing but a hospital-issued onesie.

“Our little boy was the answer to our prayers,” Wunn said. “I wanted to create something to honor him and what he had been through.”

She had an idea but procrastinated.

“My husband gave me the push I needed to take the first steps,” she said. “He told me I’d talked about it and now I had to actually do it.”

And so she did.

***

It wouldn’t be much, but Wunn decided to collect new clothing and supplies that could be sent home with a child taken in by a foster family.

To test her idea, she put a post on her Facebook page to see if anyone would donate. Within a month, she had enough clothing and supplies to fill two large plastic tubs, which she took to Randall Children’s Hospital to leave for the social worker to distribute.

Through word-of-mouth, her project – what she called Boxes of Love – grew organized. More people donated goods as well as money that Wunn used to buy new clothes, toys and books. She stored things in her bedroom until it got too crowded, then took the operation to the garage until she outgrew that space. She reached out to local churches, but none had room for Wunn and the project.

One day, while driving in Gresham she noticed Trinity Lutheran Church at 507 W. Powell Blvd. On a whim, she pulled into the parking lot, walked into the office and made her pitch. Church officials offered her, rent free, a large basement room where all items are now stored, sorted and placed into boxes for children who range from infants to 18 years old.

***

A couple of years ago, Wunn searched the Internet for foster care organizations to see if they would spread the word for her. She stumbled over Embrace Oregon, a nonprofit based in Portland that works with the Department of Human Services to focus on the foster system.

“The feeling in the community is that a person becomes a foster parent or does nothing at all,” said Brooke Gray, the organization’s executive director. “We believe there’s something all of us can do. When the community helps the most vulnerable of us, we all benefit.”

Wunn hoped Gray would list her organization on the Embrace Oregon website.

Gray did more than that, adding Boxes of Love to one of 12 nonprofits operating under the Embrace umbrella. Each offers a way for a person to volunteer time or money to help foster children and families. Embrace handles all tax issues, donations and record-keeping required of a nonprofit.

“She had a unique idea,” Gray said. “Some of these families are asked to take in a newborn with just two hours’ notice. We’ve had nurses tell us that all they have to send a baby out of the hospital with is a blanket. This is like having a baby shower and getting everything a family needs.”

***

Wunn said she yearly receives about $25,000 in donations, as well as clothing and other items. Last year, a girl in New Jersey heard about the program and raised money in her community to send Wunn 40 pairs of pajamas.

Wunn has six volunteers who help pack boxes and deliver them to hospitals and foster families throughout the metro area. Her program has partnerships with Randall, Doernbecher and neonatal units at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center, Providence Portland Medical Center and Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center in Vancouver.

Since she began four years ago, Wunn has given away 470 boxes, each with a value of about $500.

“These boxes literally have everything a foster family needs including clothes a child can grow into,” said Shannon Boreson, a licensed clinical social worker at Randall Children’s Hospital.

Several of those boxes have come to the home of Erica Speck and her husband, who over the years have cared for 40 children in their Corbett home.

“Foster parents are left to go through a stockpile of hand-me-down clothes or bottles,” Speck said. “These children didn’t ask to be in these situations. What Lyndsee is doing is showing a bit of kindness to children who have not had much of that in their lives.”

In Oregon, the average daily population of foster children is nearly 8,000, said Christine Stone, communications officer for the Department of Human Services.

“Children in care are part of their communities,” Stone said. “These children need their teachers, neighbors, relatives and friends to help provide support.”

Boxes of Love, she said, fills a specific need for children moving from the hospital to a foster family.

“These donations take a burden off the foster parents’ shoulders by providing items they will need and allows the foster parent to spend more time providing care to the children in their home,” Stone said. “These boxes also tell the foster families they are loved and appreciated and someone in the community cares for them.”

***

Earlier this month, Wunn delivered a Box of Love to a Clackamas County home where a couple had agreed to take in a baby boy born to parents struggling with mental health issues and drug abuse, making it impossible for them to provide a safe home.

After leaving, Wunn paused outside the home before getting in her car. She’d work a hospital shift the next day.

“What I see as a nurse, what other nurses see, are horrible situations,” Wunn said. “These are kids who are forgotten.”

Wunn believes foster children are the responsibility of the community.

“For some, it’s being a foster family,” she said. “Others volunteer their time or donated money. Everyone has the ability to help in some way. For me, it is Boxes of Love.”

She turned toward the house, where she saw the foster mother, infant in her arms, standing in the doorway to offer a wave and a smile goodbye.

And then the front door closed.

--Tom Hallman Jr.

thallman@oregonian.com; 503 221-8224

@thallmanjr