Variety Kids Can Campaign

VARIETY KIDS CAN

I GIVE TO HELP KIDS BE KIDS

www.variety.bc.ca

EMPOWERING YOU SO THAT KIDS CAN Variety - the Children’s Charity has been stepping in where health care ends to help kids with special needs for over 51 years. Now we’ve initiated the Variety Kids Can campaign to focus on helping more kids and their families in BC. Our mission: to inspire donors to help all children in BC who have special needs.

Our vision: to make it possible that every kid who has special needs can fulfill their unique potential.

Our challenge to you: step up and help us raise $2.5 million so more Variety Kids Can reach their full potential.

The help that Variety - the Children’s Charity provides in every corner of BC is the foundation of our organization. Parents of children with special needs often require extra support and Variety is where they turn. Now, we ask you to please help us help kids by supporting the Variety Kids Can campaign and be among those very special people in the province that can say:

I give so kids can move with freedom

I give so kids can learn in ways that work for them

I give to help kids with mental wellness

I give to help kids thrive

I give so kids can connect

I give so kids can be kids

More and more BC families with children who have special needs are counting on us. Support Variety Kids Can so we can continue to be the organization parents can turn to when their child needs help.

THE FIVE PILLARS OF THE VARIETY KIDS CAN CAMPAIGN:

MOBILITY

Provides: power and manual wheelchairs, adaptive trikes, standing walkers, custom orthotics, sunshine family vans and sunshine coaches

Mobility has always been a core pillar of Variety BC’s grant funding.

This year as part of the Variety Kids Can campaign we’re bringing all of our mobility programs together under one umbrella. We want to ensure kids with mobility challenges and their families can get out, be mobile and participate in their communities. With your help more kids like Destiny, 15 of Rosedale, can move with freedom.

“Destiny is similar to most girls her age: she likes music, having her nails painted, and is a huge sports fan. However, due to Rett syndrome, she experiences life from a wheelchair. Variety has helped Destiny with a number of grants over the years to help her stay safe, communicate, and participate in school. Most recently, Variety was able to provide the family a wheelchair accessible Sunshine Family Van. Most children with Rett syndrome cannot control their hand movements, but Destiny’s love of sports helped her achieve something remarkable – a few years ago, she threw out the first pitch at a Vancouver Canadians baseball game.”

- Tanya (Destiny’s mom)

Destiny and her mom, Tanya

Variety has helped Destiny... stay safe, communicate, and participate in school."

MENTAL WELLNESS

Provides: counseling and therapies related to mental wellness

In September 2016 Variety donated $250,000 to Lions Gate Hospital Foundation’s Youth Mental Health Campaign to support a specialized and innovative new unit in the HOpe Centre at LGH. The unit is the first of its kind in BC, focused on providing services just for kids and youth battling mental health and addictions issues.

The focus of Variety Kids Can is to help more kids like 8 year-old Grace from Coquitlam achieve mental wellness, among other things, through grants for individual therapy.

“My daughter has had a hard year. She is showing signs of childhood schizophrenia as well as her other behavioural issues. Grace receives occupational therapy and her funding was running out. I was fearful that if this happened all the progress she was making would come to an end. A friend suggested I apply to Variety for a grant for Grace so she wouldn't have to stop her therapy.

“Thank god for a charity like [Variety] – Grace is doing so well and is able to do things we never thought possible."

- Casey (Grace’s mom)

SPECIALIZED THERAPY

Provides: speech and language, occupational, physiotherapy, music therapy

Communication and connecting with others is a basic human need. Imagine if your child was unable to communicate, as was the case with 7 year-old Kalenna from Coquitlam, who has a very severe case of a neurological condition called Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) and was almost completely nonverbal until she was six years old. A grant from Variety has allowed Kalenna to see a speech therapist consistently two times a week and she is doing amazingly well!

Variety Kids Can will mean more kids like Kalenna can reach out, communicate and connect with others.

“In British Columbia there is currently no funding for any special needs support in schools for children in her situation nor is there any supplementary funding for programs to support the CAS community.”

“My daughter has developed more in the past year because of the care she has been able to receive [thanks to funding from Variety] than she did in her first 6 years with the condition without the intensive therapy.”

- Natasha & Dan (Kalenna’s parents)

Kalenna

My daughter has developed more in the past year ... thanks to funding from Variety."

LEARNING DISABILITIES AND AUTISM Provides: bursaries and education support

1 in 68 children have been identified as having Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Variety provides funding for early intervention education support as well as specialized therapies to help kids with ASD build meaningful skill and learning techniques. Variety can help with a wide range of learning disabilities. Language based learning disabilities, such as Dyslexia, are estimated to affect 15-20% of the population.

Variety Kids Can ensures that kids like 6 year-old Christina from Burnaby can learn – in ways that work for them – to read, communicate and explore all of their opportunities.

“Christina was diagnosed dyslexic at the age of five with words and numbers, and it was recommended that she get the OrtonGillingham (OG) tutoring to help. Variety was able to help fund the treatment, and we are eternally grateful for this.”

“Mother's Day came about three weeks into her OG and for the first time she wrote her name and wrote “mom” on a Mother's Day card.

I now have a happy child who loves learning, and who cannot wait to go to school and explore all her possibilities.”

I now have a happy child who loves learning, and who cannot wait to go to school."

- Heather & Dom (Christina’s parents)

MEDICAL EQUIPMENT AND SUPPLIES Provides: hearing aids, diabetic supplies, feeding supplies for newborns, and medical equipment for home support In British Columbia the provincial health program does not cover the cost of these necessities and extended health insurance plans often don’t cover the total annual costs for a child with special needs.

Variety steps in to provide essential medical equipment and supplies to kids like Andrei from Victoria, whose family was never expecting a sudden diagnosis of type 1 diabetes when he was five years old – or the financial burden. With Variety Kids Can, children like Andrei can focus on what’s really important – being a kid.

“When he was diagnosed, it felt like my world was crashing down before us.

I have a hard time watching him put the needle in. You don't want your child to be sick or hurt. I see us always needing someone. Needing Variety."

- Annalies (Andrei’s mom)

www.variety.bc.ca

Andrei and his mom, Annalies

Toll free: 1.800.381.2040

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