The Kansas Society for Children with Challenges celebrates 90 years of helping Kansans.
When Lydia Fullerton received her first pair of hearing aids at age 6, she marveled at two simple things she could now hear the birds singing and the sound of footsteps.
Lydia, now a 12-year-old fifth grader from Pottawatomie, recently received a new set of hearing aids. And again it was the Kansas Society for Children with Challenges that helped make that purchase possible, noted her mother, Laura. Lydia has 40 percent hearing loss in her right ear and 60 percent in her left.
Based in Wichita, Kansas, the Kansas Society for Children with Challenges is celebrating 90 years of helping children all across Kansas, like Lydia, and their families get much-needed resources. The private charity was founded by Wichita banker C.Q. Chandler II in 1925.
Chandler and his family knew personally how important and difficult it was to get those resources. His daughter Margaret was diagnosed with polio in 1912, and the family sought treatment for her in Philadelphia. Over the next several years, the family helped get treatment for 25 other polio-stricken children whose families didn’t have the financial resources. The family realized there was a very real need among Kansas families and that many more would be willing to help. So the Society was formed.
Since the Society’s founding in 1925, donor contributions have allowed the KSCC to help thousands of Kansas children and their families – including 161 children this past fiscal year – reach their full potential. The grants provided by the Society help pay for surgeries, treatments, special medical equipment or lifestyle modifications that can be a significant financial burden to families. Ages of children range from infants who need customized, cranial remolding helmets to wheelchair-bound teenagers who need safe transportation in modified vans.
“The Society plays a unique role in helping qualified Kansas families acquire medical equipment or services for their special needs child,” said executive director Steven Woods.
The KSCC is funded entirely by private donations, estate gifts and partnership grants from private foundations such as the Dane G. Hansen Foundation in Logan, Kansas.
To inquire about applying for a grant, call the Kansas Society for Children with Challenges, 800.624.4530.
Source: News Release – Steven Woods, Executive Director, Kansas Society for Children with Challenges
Distributed by: Doug Anstaett, Executive Director Kansas Press Association
Photo Credit: Laura Strickland, MyCuteGraphics.com
