By: A Rosie Place For Children and Impress Jewelry Creations

For A Rosie Place for Children, donations help ensure that no family of a medically fragile child ever has to pay for services. That can be life-changing for a family.

“There are families out there just getting by, and they’re doing it with a smile.  But their child’s medical needs take a toll physically and emotionally,” says Ronda Spaulding, the development office assistant at A Rosie Place for Children. “They need the support that we’re able to provide here.”

A Rosie Place for Children is the only specialty hospital in Indiana that offers respite care to medically fragile children. The nonprofit serves all 92 counties in Indiana.

“These children need 24-hour care, 7 days a week, 365 days a year,” says Tieal Bishop, the CEO and founding member of A Rosie Place for Children. “That’s a lot, that’s extraordinary. We’d do anything for our children — if you were a parent you’d do anything for your child.”

A Rosie Place gives families the opportunity to give those childhood experiences to their children with the skilled care that is required. Medically fragile children are able to stay at A Rosie Place for Children for up to 10 days, which gives their families a much-needed break from 24/7 care. Thanks to the continued generosity of the community, families don’t pay a single dollar to receive services from A Rosie Place.

As an individual, your donation can have a real impact on the life of a medically fragile child and their family. While charitable donations help out nonprofit organizations and the individuals and groups they serve, they have several benefits for you, too! Making a charitable donation feels good, and fills you with a sense of goodwill knowing that you’ve made a difference in the world. Not only that, if you itemize your taxes, charitable donations are tax-deductible.

How much you give and the way that you give is highly dependent on your own personal circumstances. But for nonprofits like A Rosie Place for Children, every single dollar donated matters. Let’s take a look at a few ways you can help.

DONATE

A cash donation is the simplest and easiest way you can give back to A Rosie Place for Children, and probably the one most people are familiar with.

Some businesses offer a match when their employees donate to nonprofit organizations. If you’re considering donating to a nonprofit, check with your company to find out if it matches donation dollars.

Donations can be made on A Rosie Place for Children’s website, or by texting 4ROSIE to 44321. Checks may be mailed directly to A Rosie Place for Children at 53131 Quince Road, South Bend, IN 46628.

Donations come in many different forms, but here are a few different ways that you can make cash donations.

One-Time Donation: One-time donations are probably the most common type of donation that nonprofits like A Rosie Place for Children receive throughout the year. Unless there are specific, written instructions, even if you donate to an organization multiple times each year your gift is considered a one-time donation.

Recurring Donations: Recurring donations occur when you work with the development officer at the nonprofit to set up planned giving throughout the year. This type of donation has benefits for the donor and the nonprofit.

For the donor, recurring donations help them spread their gift out throughout the year. A one-time donation of $720 can have a huge impact on a person’s budget, but a recurring donation of $60 a month may feel more manageable.

On the nonprofit’s side of things, a recurring donation creates a predictable source of funds each month. It allows the nonprofit to account for the money and build a budget for programs, services, or materials that accounts for the recurring gift. At a Rosie Place for Children, that $60 a month provides the opportunity for six children to participate in the specialty hospital’s programs. Because families pay nothing out of pocket, that $60 has a genuine impact for medically fragile children and their families!

Legacy Donations: Also known as planned giving, legacy donations occur when an individual passes away. It’s an opportunity to continue giving back to nonprofits like A Rosie Place for Children and make sure they’re supported as a part of your legacy.

When planning for a legacy donation, individuals work with the development officer of a nonprofit to make a plan. Legacy donations can include bequeathing a set amount of money; creating a trust or annuity for the nonprofit; naming the nonprofit as the beneficiary of a life insurance policy; or naming the nonprofit as a beneficiary of a retirement plan like a 401k or an IRA.

POWER THE SEASON

If you’re a business owner and want to be a part of something truly special through your giving, A Rosie Place for Children has a revolutionary idea for transformational giving.

“We’re looking at investors and saying: ‘We want you to power a season,’” Bishop says. “When they ask what that means, we say we want them to make a transformational gift that will truly transform. Not just in language, but in action and in outcome.”

With Power the Season, Bishop hopes to attract businesses who want to be involved in their giving. She says it’s about getting people excited about their gifts and thinking about the big, long-term effects that giving can accomplish.

“Power the Season is about getting donors to get excited and involved with their gifts,” Bishop says. “It removes the barriers of traditional giving by allowing us to think and plan on a large scale to create change for our children at a truly transformational level.”

It’s an ambitious goal, but A Rosie Place for Children has already had businesses and family foundations power four seasons with six-figure gifts. It has allowed the nonprofit to make improvements like adding sidewalks to make the backyard more accessible, installing a wheel-chair swing, and funding events for all of the children to enjoy.

AMAZON SMILE

Donating doesn’t have to be difficult. It can be as simple as using the right website and buying the things you were already going to buy. That’s exactly what Amazon Smile does.

Amazon Smile is exactly like Amazon, except the company will donate 0.5% of the cost of eligible purchase to the charity of your choice. There’s no additional fee for users to participate in Amazon Smile, it only requires you to have an Amazon account and make purchases through smile.amazon.com.

If you’re already logged into your Amazon account, simply visit smile.amazon.com. Scroll to the bottom and click Get Started. You’ll be redirected to a page where you can search for, and select, A Rosie Place for Children. That’s it!

The Amazon Smile program requires users to always visit smile.amazon.com to make purchases for the donations to be processed.

WISH LIST

A nonprofit organization like A Rosie Place for Children goes through a lot of supplies in a year. That includes everything from paper towels, to linens, to shampoo, plastic cups, pens, and Ziploc bags.

While those things don’t always sound exciting, they’re integral to making sure that the specialty hospital can continue its mission to offer respite care for families of medically fragile children. That’s why it created an Amazon Wish List of items that the organization needs.

If you’re more art minded, the list includes things like paint and paint supplies for the kids to use. If you want to share your love of reading, there are books on the list, too. If you want to get a fun, bigger ticket item, they have things like televisions, sensory wall panels, sensory mats, or a sensory canoe!

For those who have more to give, the nonprofit also needs several big-ticket items, like a therapy chair, a body rocker, and a keba seat.

GIFT CARDS

The gift card. The preferred birthday present of teenagers across the country. The great news is that it’s also an excellent gift for nonprofit organizations, too!

Gift cards to stores allow A Rosie Place for Children to be able to purchase items they need right away. That’s especially important for their H.A.V.E.N. events or when office supplies run out.

A Rosie Place for Children could particularly use gift cards from:

• Meijer
• Walmart
• Martins
• Target
• Staples
• Dollar Tree
• Kohl’s

Donations to A Rosie Place for Children are critical to allowing it to do its mission. It’s through the generosity of the community that families of medically fragile children across Indiana are able to get the respite care they desperately need. To learn more about Power the Season, contact Tieal Bishop at tieal@arosieplace.org.

If you’d like to volunteer or donate to A Rosie Place for Children, visit their website. Families who use the services of the nonprofit don’t pay a dime thanks to the generous donations of individuals and businesses in the community. For more information, or to apply, contact A Rosie Place for Children at 574-235-8899.