Nicole and Corey Deliver Christmas Spirit
Big Brother 18’s #Nicorey visits Cook Children’s
If you watched Big Brother 18, you know how much Corey Brooks loves Christmas.
His house was decked. “By far the coolest one on the block” with icicles hanging from the shingles, an 8-foot Santa, peppermint bark, tacky Christmas sweaters and cookies shaped like snowmen.
“When you get in the Christmas spirit, there’s literally nothing happier than that,” the Rockwall, Texas native said on the show.
Corey, his roommate Jake Kearns and Big Brother 18 winner Nicole Franzel brought that spirit to Cook Children’s on Thursday, Dec. 19, when they brought cart loads of toys to patients.
Brooks took advantage of how the show spotlighted his love for Christmas by starting a charity called Corey’s Elves. Corey reached out to his social media followers to help with the cause of raising money to buy toys for patients in children’s hospitals. Within three days, he raised more than $15,000 to be distributed at various locations.
Corey said the trip to Cook Children’s was made even better when Nicole was able to join him. Nicole flew from her home in Michigan to join Corey and make the trip to Fort Worth. But first they went on a shopping spree for the kids.
“When we walked into Toys R Us, we were like alright how many carts do we need,” Brooks said. “We started filling them up and running down the aisles. We got everything we wanted and even on our way out, we saw stuff in the middle of the aisle. We were like, ‘Oh we need this, we need that, the kids will love this’ …it was a lot of fun. Nicole is sitting there going, ‘I want all of this stuff.’ We basically bought everything we wanted. We thought, if we want this stuff, we can’t imagine how the kids will feel about this stuff. It was a very fun time for us to go shopping.”
Nicole said she felt like a kid again while shopping. She got to play the role of Santa’s helper during the day and helping kids find the right toy.
“So many of them saw the toy, I swear, they were looking for,” Nicole said. “It has been so fun. This place is great. It doesn’t feel like a hospital. It feels like this a giant game room where everyone is loving life. It’s so happy.”
Corey may be the all-time Big Brother champion when it comes to love of Christmas, but Nicole says it’s a special time for her family as well.
“Christmas is the best time of year,” Nicole said. “What my family does is we sit. We get locked in the house for a couple of days and we play board games! You hear me talk about playing games all the time but I love games. I love family time. I love the cookies. I love that everyone is so happy and giving. Obviously giving gifts is way better than receiving. Being able to do this today has just been awesome.”
Nicole, who is a registered Emergency Room nurse, has taken a leave from working since she won Big Brother. But there was no denying the caregiver in her during her stay at Cook Children’s. She hugged babies, joined in on the crafts in the Cook Children’s Child Life Zone and played games with the kids.
“It makes me miss working,” Nicole said. “My hospital is very tiny so to see this place and to see something so large that has this many opportunities for people and the kids, it’s amazing and this is where I would want to be.”
We welcome #Nicorey back anytime.
To Give Like Corey and Nicole
To view Cook Children's 2016 Holiday Wish List, click here.
