Keep Swimming Foundation is pleased to announce five families who have been selected by the Board of Directors to receive a combined $14,300 in aid – the largest single quarter total provided in Keep Swimming Foundation’s history!
After voting to eliminate the $3,000 per family maximum grant threshold, Keep Swimming Foundation provided two families with $4,500 – the largest single grant ever provided.
Because of our supporters’ generosity, we were able to help these families:
Family #1 – Hessel, MI – Recipients of a $4,500 Grant
In the summer of 2018, a single mother from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula learned that her daughter would be born with severe medical complications. While pregnant, she began working diligently to save money so that she could leave her hometown to seek specialized care and give her daughter the strongest chance of survival. She relocated to Ann Arbor, Michigan where she delivered soon after. Keep Swimming Foundation learned of her story in the winter of 2019. At the time of her application, her daughter had been through many surgeries to repair various congenital issues and had lived her entire life (386 days) in a critical care hospital setting. After further discussions with the family’s medical staff, we learned that they recently told the mother that her child will require a minimum of six additional months of inpatient treatment. The mother has been living off minimal aid from her family while also working various shift-based jobs nearby the hospital in an attempt to remain with her daughter.
This grant will be provided in monthly installments, which will cover the next six months of rent. This will alleviate a great deal of stress for the mother and afford her more time with her daughter.
Family #2 – Bolingbrook, IL – Recipients of a $4,500 Grant
This North Carolina family moved to the suburbs of Chicago in early 2018, just weeks before their daughter was born with several abnormalities. She was transferred to a specialty pediatric hospital in downtown Chicago, where she has remained since. The couple, struggling to balance their daughter’s needs while also caring for their Autistic son, were forced to take an unpaid leave of absence from their newly acquired jobs in the spring of 2018. Eventually, both parents were forced to quit their jobs. Surviving on their savings and donations from friends and family from North Carolina, the couple remained at their daughter’s bedside for the better portion of two years.
The family has recently learned that, barring unforeseen complications, their daughter will finally be discharged to a house they are renting in Bolingbrook. After weeks of planning and facilitating, the hospital’s Social Workers were able to provide home healthcare so that their daughter can be sustained by life-supporting machines in their home. If the family were to lose this home, their daughter would need to be readmitted to the hospital.
This Keep Swimming Foundation grant is providing this family with multiple months of rent while the father looks for new employment in the Chicagoland area.
Family #3 – Scotland, AR – Recipients of a $3,000 Grant
After multiple miscarriages, this Arkansas couple had made it to thirty-four weeks gestation when in March 2019, while at work, the expecting mother began to feel lightheaded and dizzy. Her husband, a Veteran who worked at the same company, rushed her to the Emergency Room. Many hours later, their daughter was born not breathing. The child was airlifted to a specialty hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas, where she was diagnosed with various cardiac anomalies and later underwent several successful reconstructive procedures.
As of early January 2020, the child was still hospitalized; however, the family is anticipating a discharge prior to February.
This grant will aid the family in securing a new home near the treating hospital, so that their daughter may receive the best possible ongoing treatment. The grant will help the family in covering rent through April 2020, while they work to get back on their feet and return to normalcy.
This quarter, Keep Swimming Foundation’s Board of Directors provided the Junior Board with $1,000 to supplement the funds students raised throughout the past quarter to help families in need.
Along with the funds, Keep Swimming Foundation provided these students with two applications. The Junior Board made the following grant decisions:
Family #4 – Los Angeles, CA – Recipients of a $1,300 Grant
The husband of this Los Angeles couple was diagnosed with Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension in 2015. His health continued to decline until 2019, when he inevitably grew very weak and was no longer able to work or complete daily activities with ease. In November 2019, he was admitted to a hospital in downtown Los Angeles, California where he underwent multiple tests and doctors began the process of having him listed for a lung transplant. In late December, just before the holidays, he was discharged from the hospital where he currently remains awaiting his next admission and inevitable transplant.
This grant will provide his wife, who rarely left his bedside, enough to cover the out-of-pocket expenses she endured throughout his month-long admission.
Family #5 – Seattle WA – Recipients of a $1,000 Grant
A retired couple from Washington had their lives turned upside down in September when the husband began to grow very weak and was subsequently admitted to a hospital in downtown Seattle. He learned he was in end-stage heart failure and would require a lifesaving heart transplant. Miraculously, a matching donor was located in less than a month. The surgery was a success. Unfortunately, one of the IV medications he was provided post-transplant caused great trauma to his kidneys, causing him to remain hospitalized throughout the holiday season.
The patient’s wife began learning the local public transportation line in an attempt to reduce spending on gasoline and parking during her daily visits to the hospital.
Presently, the husband has been relocated to a rehabilitation facility, where he is expected to remain until early spring.
This grant will provide the patient’s wife the needed funds to continue her daily trips throughout the coming months.
Without our incredibly generous donors, we would not be able to help families of critically ill individuals. Already, we have begun receiving applications for Q1 2020. Please consider clicking the button below so that you may directly impact a future family in need.