Most of this post comes from the Illinois Children's Care website. It's edited slightly to reduce the length, but I wanted to inform our customers of their story and what they do for kids. It helps to portray the reason they are one of the charities we assist.
Many people don't realize there's an organization that's dedicated to serving kids in need of medical help. Over 85 years ago, the Elks of Illinois recognized the special needs of physically challenged children in Illinois and formed the Children's Care organization.
During the early years, much of the work consisted of helping children injured in accidents and suffering from polio. As medical treatments cured many children's diseases, the program evolved to provide services, treatments, and equipment needed to ease a child's daily burden in coping with physical issues.
Some cases require custom designed braces, wheelchairs and treatment programs while others may simply be include corrective shoes. On many occasions we have been told we helped when no one else seemed to care.
In addition to direct assistance for children, the Illinois Children's Care became aware of the growing need for physical therapists to help handicapped children. The program has been providing financial aid to college students in the physical therapy field since 1970. The program expanded in 1992 to include the field of occupational therapy. The intervening years have seen the program grow from two applicants in 1970 to over 250 applicants recently.
We think highly of Illinois Children's Care and appreciate having the opportunity to donate to the causes they support.
