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Sunshine Coach
Variety At Work
Fund Raising
Major Commitment
Limb Banks
Lifeline
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Thanks to the generosity of the Ford Motor Company, each Variety Tent
annually provides two Ford 15 passenger Vans to their local children's
charities for one year's use. These Variety Sunshine Coaches transport
children to educational, recreational and medical programs. Our Orlando
Tent has over 35 Sunshine Coaches on the road in Central Florida.
In 1962, the Sunshine Coach program was born by Variety of Great Britain
as a means to literally bring "children out" by providing transportation
to those who needed it. Leslie A. MacDonnell, C.B.E., a Variety member
saw a child in a London hospital that had never been outside and decided
their must be other children who needed their spirits lifted and therefore
founded the program of providing transportation to handicapped and
underprivileged children in schools, youth camps, treatment centers
and societies.Coaches are obtained and placed in several ways. Requests
may be made by a children's facility directly to Variety International
or to a local chapter. All requests are scrupulously evaluated before
any action can take place.
When sponsors or significant contributors are involved, the benefactor's name, whether personal or corporate is prominently represented on the vehicle. Often an individual of a family group will elect to sponsor a coach as an especially meaningful memorial.
The "43" Sunshine Coach Recipients in Orlando have been:
- 1990 - Russell Home for Atypical Children, Jake Allen Center,
C.I.T.E.
- 1991 - Beta House, Children's Home Society, Mako
- 1992 - Kat Cadogan Home, 4 C's , Mako Project III, Methodist
Children's Home
- 1993 - Mako Project III, Edgewood Children's Ranch, The Grove
Counseling Center, Frontline Outreach, P.A.L.- Police Athletic
League, PACE
- 1994 - Frontline Outreach, Center for Drug-Free Living, CHARLEE
of Central Fla.
- 1995 - Osceola Children's Home, Boys & Girls Clubs 1996 - YMCA,
Esteem, Inc.
- 1997 - Boys & Girls Club, Frontline Out Reach
- 1998 - Green Isles Children's Ranch, Christian Service Center
- 1999 - Mt. Dora Children's Home, Boys & Girls Club of Osceola
(received 2 vans)
- 2000 - Wayne Densch Pine Hills YMCA, Boggy Creek Gang, Threshold,
Police Athletic League, Green Isles Children's Ranch, The Grove
Counseling Center
- 2001 - Threshold - Center For Drug Free Living
- 2002 - Restore Orlando, the Boys & Girls Clubs SW
- 2003 - Threshold and the Boys & Girls Clubs
Variety Orlando was a recipient of $3,000 for the Sunshine Coach Fund
at the 1999 Walt Disney Community Service Awards.
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The members who participate in Variety at Work do more than reach out - they take hold - literally and personally. This program enables everyone to become involved and connected with children who need some encouragement. We take kids ice skating, on picnics, fishing trips, amusement parks and of course the circus. For a child with special needs, buying an ice cream cone from a public vendor may be a very special event. Variety at Work members make that happen because they are the human link to the event.
Tent #70 Orlando has a VANtasia event every year where hundreds of children go to grand place like a working cow ranch. They touch the animals, take a hay ride, grill hamburgers and hotdogs, play games,
get tattooed, and shoot water pistols. They have FUN!
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All monies raised through fundraising efforts are donated to appropriate
individual children and families or children's charities and are held
in the "heart" fund. We also have contributions from individuals and
corporations sometimes requesting money go to particular children
children's charities in our community. We have a special savings account
for the "sunshine coach" fund where individuals and corporations can
make donations to provide our waiting list of children whose organizations
desperately need transportation.
There are numerous and creative ways that these funds are raised.
Variety Orlando holds parties, social outings, silent auctions and
special functions. As part of the international organization, Orlando
participates in the sale of Gold Heart Pins (only $2.00 each) in the
movie theatres and retail locations which constitute our major fundraising
effort. Each year a new pin design is created by the designer Marsha
Rae Ratcliffe in London, England.
In the United States, the Entertainment Industry supports Variety by helping fund and create the promotional materials for the Gold Heart Pins to be displayed upon as-well-as with posters and mobiles. A new campaign slogan is created and the printed materials and on-screen slides and movie trailers usually feature major film stars.
We have the support of the top motion picture distributors and entertainment companies including: 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Universal, Buena Vista, DreamWorks, MGM/UA, Sony, New Line Cinema, Screenvision Cinema Network, DTS Technicolor and Eastman Kodak.
Our National Exhibitor Theatres include: United Artists, AMC, MUVICO, Regal, Lowes, Carmike, Cineplex Odeon, Mann, Cinemark, Pacific and more. The theatre personnel sell the Gold Heart Pins at the concession stands in the Theatres and sometime in the theatre before the movie. They do a great job!
All the money raised by each Tent stays in their city to be directed where the needs are the greatest for children.
How the money is spent for kids . . . The Board of Directors and the Charities Committee considers all requests equally and fairly. Each recommendation is reviewed and voted on. Help is given to a wide range of deserving causes including: indoor and outdoor play equipment, essential medical equipment, computer and educational systems, transportation or monetary assistance, etc.
Many children's charities have benefited from monetary gifts such as the Edgewood Children's Ranch, the Green Isles Children's Ranch, the Osceola Children's Home, Give Kids the World, the Russell Home for Atypical Children, the Boys & Girls Clubs, the Grove Counseling Center and more.
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Our Major Commitment is to our Variety Neonatal ECMO Unit in the Neonatal
Department at the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children and Women. Our
Orlando tent became aware of the need to provide help to infants born
with specific reversible lung disease through their Variety Medical
Advisor Gregor Alexander, M.D., then Director of Newborn Services,
for the Orlando Regional Healthcare System. This treatment utilizes
a heart-lung machine that bypasses the lungs and allows the baby with
acute respiratory disease to heal for a period of days ( acting as
an artificial lung). "Without this treatment," said Dr. Alexander,
"these babies experience a 100% mortality rate! With EMCO we can save
80-90% of these very sick babies."
ECMO - Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation Unit - the name is difficult to pronounce and the medical procedure is complicated, but the concept is simple - saving newborn infants who otherwise would have no hope.
We recognized the great need for the Neonatal ECMO Unit and made a $500,000 pledge to support it. Variety of Orlando presents the hospital with our contribution on an annual basis through fund-raising efforts
and donations.
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In the broad spectrum of Variety sponsored programs dedicated to the comfort and care of handicapped children, there is none more distinguished in scientific implication and universal impact than the development and operation of Limb Banks. In terms of research, manufacture and fitting centers, it is one in which Variety played - and continues to play - a major role in the endless quest for improved technology.
Variety became actively involved in the field in 1970, when aeronautical engineer Dr. Collin McLaurin, of the Ontario Crippled Children's Center, urged Variety to set up a production facility to produce an "electric elbow". The Variety Electro Limb Productions Centre in Toronto was the first to produce this elbow and now produces a wide range of prosthetic devices including systems for paraplegic spina bifida children. A closely woven international network of Variety Limb Banks serves the prosthetic needs of children everywhere.
You can help by making us aware of these particular "special kids" and giving a donation to this worthwhile program. Please click on the How to Help button.
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Of all of Variety's programs, Variety Children's Lifeline may be the most dramatic and poignant. Dramatic because children facing lives circumscribed by crippling infirmity are granted a new future of complete or near complete normalcy. More often than not these are children from those areas of the world where even accurate diagnosis may be unavailable and essential treatment undreamed of. In such situations, Lifeline becomes the "bridge of life".
Lifeline maintains a medical advisor in both Western and Eastern Hemispheres. On the basis of case histories and other medical data, diagnoses are made and a decision reached as to where the necessary medical treatment may be best performed. Once a cooperating hospital has been targeted, Lifeline arranges all logistics of travel, food and lodging for the child and his or her adult companion. Lifeline and cooperating medical facilities absorb all costs. Cooperating physicians and surgeons donate their services to bring the child here or treat them abroad.
Lifeline is an example of the perfect synergy obtainable when human
empathy combines with advanced medical science. In the last several
years, over a thousand life-saving procedures have been carried out
both here and abroad. The funding for the Lifeline project comes from
special events and individual contributions. An individual pledge
of $10,000 will bring a donor the designation of a Variety Lifeliner.
Pledges may be paid at one time or over a period of ten years.
At the 1999 Los Angeles Variety International Convention the world's
largest private international medical relief organization, delivering
aid to populations threatened by war, epidemics or disasters - "Doctors
Without Borders" - was chosen as our Humanitarian Award recipient.
Founded in 1971, by a small group of French doctors determined to
respond rapidly and effectively to public health emergencies. Over
2,000 doctors, nurses and other medical people from 45 nations volunteer
with "Doctors Without Borders" each year. They work in more than 80
countries, together with 15,000 local staff, restoring health and
hope to millions, A contribution of any amount to this worthy cause
will surely be appreciated by the recipients of this needed medical
practice.
Variety Orlando became a Lifeline member of the Palm Springs Variety
Club International Convention in 2002.
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