WARREN, Ohio -- The Home Savings Charitable Foundation presented a check for $30,000 Friday to the Children’s Rehabilitation Center of Howland for pediatric therapy services.
“They have been a longtime supporter of Children’s Rehabilitation Center having donated over $500,000 to our programs and our services,” said Robert Foster, executive director of the center. “This beautiful building came to us as a gift from Home Savings Foundation, so we’re very blessed to have them supporting the work we do here for children.”
Last week’s contribution was an annual gift for the Children With Courage Fund, part of a five-year commitment that helps meet the costs of providing physical, occupational, and speech therapy services for children in need.
“The Children With Courage Fund was established in 1996 to allow all children, regardless of their ability to pay, to come to Children’s Rehabilitation Center and receive the much needed services they deserve without a break in any service,” Foster explained. “As much as we do our diligence in billing third-party insurance, there are limits of service attached to that. With the help of Home Savings, that continuum of services is not broken.”
The Children’s Rehabilitation Center served 847 children last year.
“We were blessed to have Home Savings come out and see what we do for children,” Foster said. “They believe strongly in the services we provide and they chose to support us in that.”
The relationship between the rehabilitation center and the charitable foundation began in 2000, the year after the foundation started. The foundation used its first year to get a feel for where its resources could do the most good. Darlene Pavlock, executive director of the foundation, visited the center, traveled the community and spoke to the children it helped. From those visits and conversations came the decision to support the center, she said.
“They take care of children from infancy to 18. They have programs that are tailored for a specific child and it’s not a cookie-cutter type of place,” Pavlock said. “You don’t have to worry about fitting a square peg in a round hole. They will do whatever they can possibly do to help with the child. And that met with our parameters at the foundation, and over the years, they’ve just grown bigger and better.”
Pavlock has met with many of the children and young adults who have benefited from the therapy services at the Children’s Rehabilitation Center, she said.
“Because of Children’s Rehab, they can have a life," Pavlock said, “and that’s what it’s all about.”
Copyright 2012 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.