Why was Seacrest and this ‘Stranger Things’ star at a Miami hospital? Take a look
A broadcasting studio that will focus on creating kid-led videos, radio shows and podcasts has opened at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital near South Miami as part of a collaboration with the Ryan Seacrest Foundation.
The Seacrest Studio will be the first in the Foundation’s network to create bilingual content that will be streamed at pediatric hospitals across the country, including in Atlanta, Orlando, Boston and Washington, D.C.
“This is a very Miami studio,” Seacrest said Tuesday during a red carpet event ahead of the studio’s first-ever live broadcast, noting that the Foundation had wanted to launch content in other languages for a long time.
The studio will give Nicklaus patients, including those who visit the hospital for outpatient care, the opportunity to explore the realms of radio, television and news media. They’ll be able to experience what it’s like to report the weather forecast, interview celebrity and local guests, play games, explore the arts and more. The English and Spanish content will be live-streamed — and then recorded for on-demand viewing inside patient rooms — at participating hospitals.
And Miami, with its diverse culture, seemed like a perfect fit.
“What we’re excited about is we don’t know what content will be created” by the kids, but we know “it’ll have its own character and charisma to it,” Seacrest added.
Nicklaus is expected to be “the epicenter” for much of the network’s new programming, according to Meredith Seacrest Leach, Ryan’s sister and the executive director and CEO of the Ryan Seacrest Foundation.
“Our hope is that this becomes truly a special place for families that are in the hospital, a place to escape what they’re going through, even for a little bit — a safe space to hang out, meet friends, be creative,” Seacrest Leach told the Miami Herald a day before the studio’s opening.
Patients like Nicolas Herrera are ready. The 11-year-old, who wants to work in broadcast in the future, said he came ready with a list of questions to ask the Seacrests and other guest stars, including how the siblings came up with the idea to create Seacrest Studios, an initiative that got its start over a decade ago.
Maja Milovanovic, 16, a former Nicklaus cancer patient who served as one of the studio’s reporters Tuesday, told the Herald during the red carpet event that she was excited but also nervous to interview so many well-known figures. She was a natural on camera, interviewing Nicklaus Children’s Health System President and CEO Matthew Love, the Seacrest siblings, and stars on the studio’s guest list as they walked — and then conga-d — across the carpet. That included Miami social media influencer Lele Pons and actresses Priah Ferguson and Anna Cathcart of Netflix’s popular “Stranger Things” and “XO, Kitty,” respectively.
“It’s so important to listen to the kids, to actually help them, to motivate them, to push them to be the best version of themselves,” Pons said while expressing her excitement to be one of the Miami studio’s first guests.
The Seacrests say they’ve seen firsthand how the studio has helped children at other hospitals make friends and find new opportunities to express their creativity. They’ve seen it boost confidence in kids, and give them something to look forward to when they go to the hospital for medical treatment.
“At Nicklaus, we’re always about the patient experience,” said Love, noting that many kids come to the hospital for cancer, heart disease and other difficult treatments. When they come to the studio, “we’re going to see a smile on their faces. That’s what makes it all worth it.”
The glass studio, located inside the hospital’s main lobby with an “On Air” sign outside its doors, looks like a professional broadcast studio, with multiple microphones to ensure that several patients can participate in programming at the same time.
“I’m so excited to meet [the patients] and to be here today ... it feels extra special,” said Cathcart. “It means a lot more than other interviews that I’ve done in the past. So I’m very excited for that.”
Ferguson said she would tell patients who may be skittish about getting on the air that “it’s OK to be nervous.”
“Be confident in your talent, in your gift,” she advised.
Drawing away anxiety
Other organizations, like the Coral Gables-based nonprofit Comic Kids, will also be using the space to create kid-friendly programming. Comic Kids, which was already hosting online drawing classes for Seacrest Studios-affiliated pediatric hospitals in Atlanta and New York, was recently tapped by the Foundation to create Seacrest Studios’ first ever Spanish art show.
The nonprofit teaches kids online and in person how to draw characters from Pokémon, Star Wars, “KPop Demon Hunters,” and other popular comics and cartoons.
Fine art dealer Kat Barrow-Horth and her husband founded the nonprofit to help make drawing more accessible to children. And you may have seen them — or their work — around town.
Comic Kids has taught free drawing classes in the Nicklaus lobby for several years and has also partnered with different organizations across South Florida to host drawing classes and donate books and coloring supplies. Hundreds of educators have also downloaded free coloring pages the nonprofit offers on the popular TeachersPayTeachers website.
Most recently, the nonprofit created an academic coloring book for Crystal Academy, a private school in the Gables that teaches kids with autism and other developmental disorders. The book, which features, among other things, drawings of Crystal students, was created with Crystal Academy to match the educational needs of its students. The book’s ABCs, for example, are not in order. Instead, letters appear from easiest to hardest to learn.
Nicklaus has been a “blessing,” parent Elischa Ramirez told the Herald as she watched her nearly 4-year-old son Riley attempt to draw himself as a Peanuts character during an October Comic Kids class at Nicklaus.
Riley has received therapy at Nicklaus and was there for a doctor’s appointment. Staff is always trying to find ways to be relatable to kids and help them “learn by playing,” Ramirez said.
“He always looks forward to seeing what’s happening in the lobby,” she said.
The intimate lobby sessions are an example of what patients will experience when Comic Kids begins to host monthly classes inside Seacrest Studios. The studio has a neighboring room with tables and chairs to host in-person activities to go with the broadcast.
Barrow-Horth’s 10-year-old son, Ronan, has already helped her film the first batch of episodes inside a studio at the University of Miami’s School of Communication.
The plan: Besides recording episodes inside Seacrest Studios’ Nicklaus location, Barrow-Horth said the nonprofit will send a free weekly art curriculum to the hospitals that are part of Seacrest Studios’ network. Hospital staff will be able to print the coloring sheets and step-by-step instructions, put them in folders and take them to patients’ rooms. Kids will also be able to tune in to prerecorded videos that give step-by-step instructions on how to draw certain characters.
Drawing and coloring are known to help reduce stress, anxiety and improve mood. It’s also fun.
“I feel great,” said Christopher Suarez, 6, who was getting ready to leave Nicklaus after an October doctor’s visit and made a pit stop at the drawing table. Christopher, who said he loves to draw at home, wasn’t expecting to find a drawing session at Nicklaus. It was a nice surprise for his dad too, who appreciated the opportunity to have his son do something fun that doesn’t involve screen time.
For Juliana Pereira, lead of children’s experience at Nicklaus, the drawing classes and the new studio are part of the hospital’s strategy to help “normalize the hospital environment” and reduce anxiety in patients.
The goal, she said, is to make kids “feel like the hospital is a safe, fun place to go and provide a little bit of a distraction” for children during a stressful and scary time in their life.
“It’s great to see them move out of their shell, experience creativity, step away from the bedside and take that moment to just de-stress,” said Pereira.
This story was originally published December 9, 2025 at 3:13 PM.
