By Janet May | KEX Kids Board Member
Dear Donors,
Thank you Global Giving donors for your generous support this year! Several donors have set up recurring donations and we appreciate this ongoing support. Thank you, too, for helping us to continue to provide vision and hearing care for all eligible children requesting our help!! As we mentioned in last year’s report, in addition to meeting our goal the KEX Kids Fund had been selected to receive a National Outstanding Service Award from the NAB Education Foundation for Service to Children presented in Washington DC on June 16, 2015!! In addition to this National Award, the KEX Kids Fund received local recognition by the Oregon Lions Sight and Hearing Foundation as their Partner of the Year at their Gala Award Dinner on October 3, 2015. The award was presented by Dr. Eric Jones, Legacy Health Systems. Thank you again for your help to make this recognition possible!
In 2016 year your support helped us raise $237,886.01 (including payments from our November 2016 pledge drive) to provide both hearing and vision care for needy children in Oregon and SW Washington. Most of our operating expenses for 2016 were pledged and collected during our annual Thanksgiving Fundraiser. In November 2016, we have received $124,470 be used for our $175,000 budget for 2017. To date we have received $169,160 from Fundraiser pledges. We are very pleased with this support as the radio time for the fundraiser included only the four morning broadcasts and not the two afternoon commuting time broadcasts which have historically brought in $15,000 to $20,000 in pledges. Our funds are kept in one account and are used for both of our Hearing and Vision Care programs. During the first quarter of 2017, we have received $49,942 to be used for both our Hearing and Vision Care program which includes pledges from our 2016 Thanksgiving Fundraiser. We are very pleased with this support as the radio time for the fundraiser included only the four morning broadcasts and not the two afternoon commuting time broadcasts which have historically brought in $15,000 to $20,000 in pledges. Our funds are kept in one account and are used for both of our Hearing and Vision Care programs.
Please note that May 21,2017, is the date for the Second Annual Vision Fun Run in the Portland area – created by one of our local children to benefit the KEX Kids Fund. More details are available at www.visionfunrun.com
We also added four counties in Oregon and Washington to our vision and hearing programs: Crook County in Oregon to Vision Care and Lane County in Oregon to Hearing Care; Klickitat and Walla Walla Counties in Washington to Hearing Care.
Vision Care Program Services expenses for the first quarter of 2017 were $11,180 and the KEX Kids Fund completed requests from 126 children. These KEX Kids Fund children received vision care services valued at over $40,000. So far in 2017, we have received applications from 366 children compared with 296 from this same period in 2016.We continue to be able to provide vision care services to all qualified children who request our help and have no other options for vision care. Our contact at the Oregon Lions Sight and Hearing Foundation (OLSHF), Kerith Vance, receives Thank You notes form children receiving KEX Kids Fund vision care which we will attach to this report when available.
We continue to be concerned about reaching children who have vision problems and whose families qualify for our help (on free or reduced-price lunch programs). School districts in Oregon depend upon the Oregon Lions Sight and Hearing Foundation to provide vision screening for their students. Funding this program is becoming a challenge and the KEX Kids Fund Board is expanding our partnership with OLSHF to help them continue to provide screening to districts without the resources to fund the screening program. In response to a proposal from OLSHF, at our July 2015 board meeting, we voted to contribute $25,000 to OLSHF to help them provide the Mobile Health Screening Program (MHSP) to districts that lack local resources to share in the cost of providing this service to their students. In 2016, OLSHF provided screening in 360 schools. About 130,000 children were screened resulting in referrals for over 11,000 children for additional vision care.
In addition to assistance with the OLSHF’s vision screening program, at our April 2016 board meeting we voted to contribute $9000 to OLSHF’s Optical Finishing Lab project to assemble children’s frame display kits for our providers to use with their children to select high quality low cost eyeglasses at considerable savings. The KEX Kids Fund will pay OLSHF LEAP program directly for eyeglasses for our children. This reduces the cost of vision care for providers that use the LEAP program from $125 to $105.
Thank you again for helping us to bring sight to needy children in Oregon and SW Washington.
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