The Big Apple Circus: Class Clowns

A child's need to laugh can get lost under a cloud of concern when he or she is hospitalized with a serious illness.

But for the past 20 years, The Big Apple Circus has been addressing the problem by turning sadness into joy with a hospital "clowning" program called Clown Care.

Selected performers are professionally trained to work in sensitive hospital environments.

They make personal bedside visits with children to help them cope with their illness, by providing them with the elixir of life, laughter.