They're dealing with childhood cancers, brain tumors. Project Playhouse brings them joy.

Within seconds of stepping through the pink front door, Raelyn Augusto took over her new playhouse.

The lines of clapping people leading her to the playhouse, her name on the door, and the way this playhouse clearly reflected her likes — Fancy Nancy, country stores — told the 6-year-old that this was for her. And she’s not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“I like it,” she declared, opening the window to set up her country store. “I’m selling bubble wands. I only sell bubble wands for now because the rest of the things aren’t here yet.”

But soon, she said, she’s going to start selling lemonade.

Nine months ago, Raelyn, who is from Lincoln, was in the hospital for a bone marrow transplant. Afterward, for a little while, she stopped playing. She just didn’t have the energy, said her mom, Thelma Augusto.

Life-threatening medical conditions, the type that can almost freeze childhood in its tracks, were something shared by all the children who received playhouses at the seventh annual Project Playhouse reveal Wednesday morning at Bryant University. Diagnoses like leukemia, T-cell lymphoma or brain tumors.

But that’s not the only thing they shared.

When each of the four children who were able to attend was given the same gift to take home — a custom playhouse, lovingly crafted by local vocational-tech students to inspire their fantasy worlds — they all reacted with the same joy.

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While Raelyn started selling bubble wands and planning her lemonade business, one house over, Jack Coale of Warwick was popping bubbles in front of his new bait shop, a house he rushed toward, smile growing, as soon as he realized it was his.

And in the house to Raelyn’s other side, Sophia Vivieros of Fall River was climbing to the top of the turret of her new castle, a new toy and a bubble wand in hand.

At the end of the row, Aspen Peck of Cranston closed the door to her new toadstool house, playing inside with older brother Elliot. Every few minutes, one of them would stick their face into one of the bubble-shaped windows, grinning ear to ear.

Her parents, who have worked to balance 3-year-old Aspen’s treatment for her acute myeloid leukemia against the joys of ballet class and family camping trips, gushed over the playhouse's complicated mushroom shape while taking the moment in.

“That’s basically how we live our lives now, is just trying to create joy for her. It gets us through all the hard parts,” said Aspen’s mom, Ashley Peck. “It gets us through all the hard parts of treatment. Like tomorrow, we have clinic and she might be there all day long, but we’ll talk about her new playhouse.”

In the last seven years, Project Playhouse, a branch of Rosemary’s Wish Kids, has built 32 playhouses for area children between the ages of 3 and 7 with life-threatening illnesses.

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“I always ask the parents for three things, three things for the child,” said Rosemary Bower, the founder of Rosemary’s Wish Kids. “I turn those three things over to the crew, and they let their creativity and imagination, as you can see, just go.”

The “crew” brings together management students at Bryant University with vocational and other schools. This year, the schools include Bishop Hendricken High School, Warwick Area Career & Technical Center, Newport Area Career & Technical Center, Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School in Fall River and Chariho Career & Technical Center.

The student “got the concept that this kid needs a space to just be a kid because this kid is going through so much,” said Bonny Pride, from the Chariho program. “They really got the notion that we’re going to do something so this kid can have something normal and a play area designed for them to go wherever their imagination takes them.”

And that notion brought meaning to the work as they designed playhouses that weren’t just pretty but technically challenging. The Chariho students worked on an octagonal mushroom shape that required a fiberglass roof the marine-tech students put together, thinking through details like the placement of windows at heights that would work for Aspen and Elliot.

In the end, what everyone working on the project wants is “to make it as magical as possible,” said Bryant freshman Cassandra Hierl, who coordinated the project.

“We're really helping people here,” Hierl said. “We're doing something great for kids, and they’ve been through so much, and now they get their little escapism, where they can just, you know, be a kid again.”

Watching Jack run toward his house and Raelyn with her lemonade having a moment, Hierl said, made everything worthwhile.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Project Playhouse, RI schools bring joy to children with cancer