My Nonprofit Reviews

We joined HopeKids late November of 2023 and jumped right in, filling up our depleted tanks with everything HopeKids has to offer families. We joined HopeKids at a time when we desperately needed community here in Texas. HopeKids offers a specialized and unique support system that we had been missing all long. There is nothing like this in Florida, at least not when we lived there. (They will be launching a Florida chapter, hopefully this summer.)

We are able to attend various events alongside other families similar to ours: both in person and virtually. The online events have been very pivotal for our family as our daughter is often hospitalized or we are juggling multiple medical appointments each week. Whether our daughter is in the hospital or not we are still able to receive support, a sense of belonging, community, and camaraderie. Because of HopeKids we have something on our calendar to look forward to outside the scope of the daily and weekly medical care our daughter requires.

We are big on doing what we can, when we can to create meaningful memories with both of our children, while we are still able to do so. HopeKids strives to provide our family with weekly and monthly experiences where both of my children can just be kids and my husband and I are seen, valued and honored.

I will never forget our first HopeKids event. We wore our matching family pajamas to a HopeFlick movie to see The Polar Express. I had never seen it before, and we had never watched the movie as a family. I will never forget walking into the movie theater that day and the feeling I felt. The whole bottom front row was reserved for wheelchair families.
Our family usually stands out when we go places, and I wish I could say that as a compliment, but it is not. People stare, they quickly look away and dodge eye contact altogether, or I get looks of pity. Rarely, very rarely does someone see my daughter then see me and smile. So, I have become accustomed to having a stern look on my face and keeping my gaze forward in response to said gestures.

But on that day, we didn’t stand out and I remember feeling relieved. I remember looking around and seeing other young children, like my own with profound disabilities and medical complexities in wheelchairs take up that entire front row. I remember feeling so seen. I remember feeling an uncommon feeling of dignity and honor, as wheelchair accessible seating was set aside for my daughter and companion seating for our entire family was reserved for us, that morning.
I remember hearing kids stemming, hearing medical equipment go off during the movie, and hearing nonverbal children like my daughter vocalizing and in that moment, I remember feeling safe. Both of my children were able to be themselves and I didn’t have to minimize, dismiss, negate or apologize for our everyday reality for the sake of someone else’s comfortability any longer.

I knew then, these were my people and our life hasn’t been the same since.

HopeKids considers the whole family unit and not just the sick kid. The emphasis is not just on my daughter, but my son is equally thought of too and for that we are thankful. HopeKids also cares about the impact that having a child with a life-threatening medical condition(s) has on marriages.

I firmly believe that HopeKids has saved the life of at least one child and one parent / caregiver by providing tangible hope in hopeless
situations. That reason in and of itself is enough to rally around this exceptional organization. HopeKids is actually meeting the needs of a forgotten and displaced people group in our society.

We need your help so that HopeKids can continue to reach more families. We need your partnership in order for HopeKids to further advance both the short and long term impact they have within our community. We need your support in order for HopeKids to be able to continue providing a vast array of events year- round.

Thank you for your support whether it is through volunteering your time and/or financial contributions. We are so grateful for you!