Category: Uncategorized

Posted on

Another family helped by the foundation

Today the Nikolas Foundation helped another family in need.
 
Javier Vega was born at just 24 weeks, weighing 1lb. 10 oz. but he is a fighter. He was born in a small town in Utah and, because of his challenges, was whisked to Primary Children’s Hospital the day he was born.
 
He has all the challenges of an extremely premature baby and has been in the Neonatal ICU since they day of his birth, October 11, 2019. He has endured several surgeries and will probably be in the hospital for a few more months.
 
Here is the request for help, in Mom’s words:
 
“Since I have an eight year old and a seven year old that have to go to school during the week, I am forced to drive to Salt Lake City, UT (2 1/2 hours each way) a few times a week to see my baby boy and be with him as much as humanly possible as well as be there for my other two kids at home.
 
The cost of transportation gets harder and harder to manage. To receive help with the travel expense would be greatly appreciated and helpful to our family.”
 
The social worker at the hospital recommended a gas card to alleviate the elevated challenge of this mom to get to see her baby. We approved the application and forwarded to her a gas card for $400 to offset gas costs for the commute.
 
Once again, right in our mission statement and we were delighted to help. Get healthy, Javier, and get home to your family.
 
Thanks, as always, to those that donate to our cause. We will continue our mission as we continue to fund raise.
Posted on

Another busy few days at the Foundation

Well it has been a busy week here at the foundation. We just finished buying baby supplies and furniture for out latest family.
Little Christopher was born prematurely with a number of challenges and has been in the NICU for over 5 months. It appears he is going home in the next few days and the family did not have the time or funds to shop for the things they need to bring him home.
 
We bought things like a stroller, crib, bottle warmer and other items that will make the transition easier and for which the family will not have to worry about where they will fund the money.
 
Once again, our Mission is met. Thanks to all.
Posted on

Adding another corporate sponsor

If any of you saw a recent NBC news cast about “The Precious Baby Project”, you will understand why we were compelled to reach out to Angela Forker. She is the owner of Precious Baby Photography in New Haven, IN, just outside Ft. Wayne.

Her special floor scenes are inspired by Adele Enerson, and she calls these  Baby ImaginArt. Her motto for these layouts is “ANYthing is possible”.

Her story is one of inspiration and faith that give special needs babies and their family a chance to see it all in a different light and to share the true nature of these families. Angela does this part of her mission for free to the families and makes sure they have a beautiful photo to hang in their home.

We are working with Angela to include her in our next fundraising event as a speaker and to auction one of her sessions. We hope to have an announcement soon.

You can see all about her project here:

http://www.preciousbabyphotography.com/#!/pages/the-precious-baby-project

And, you can see her NBC interview here:

https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/photographer-brings-joy-to-families-with-photoshoots-for-kids-with-special-needs-72737349875

Thank you Angela for your kindness and understanding that make the life of special needs children better.

Posted on

The Nikolas Foundation mission continues with another family funded

We just helped another family today at the Nikolas Foundation. Here is the story from Mom’s view that she shared.
 
“We were excited to find out that we were about the become the parents and were blessed with identical twins.
 
After passing the critical first trimester we informed our families of the unexpected news.
 
On our visit to the Doctor’s office at 22 weeks (three and a half months premature), we got a shock with the Doctor telling us we were going into labor, and had to get to the hospital quickly.
 
Two days later our twin boys came into our world. Born 9/19/19 Henry was 12 ounces and 9.5 inches long and Hendrix was 16.2 ounces and 10.6 inches long.
 
Henry was unable to take a breathe and passed away 2 hours later.
 
Hendrix fought hard to stick around and was admitted to the NICU shortly after birth. He was so tiny and fragile… the team at the hospital he was born in help keep Hendrix comfortable and stable for 1 week until his intestine perforated and he was life flighted to Primary Children’s Hospital.
 
Hendrix has since undergone two surgeries, is scheduled for a third and is fighting for his life every minute of every day.
 
He is extremely ill but still shows his family and the nurses that he hears us and loves us. He has some cute quirks and quickly steals everyone’s heart.”
 
His prognosis is guarded as he struggles with adrenal insufficiency, bowel perforation, acute kidney injury and hypotension. At this stage there is no real answer how long Hendrix will be in the hospital but the expectations are for at least 3 more months.
 
Mom applied through the social workers at the hospital asking for help with a number of bills to take the pressure off for a bit. We submitted the application to our review committee and it was approved quickly. We were able to pay the car payment, mortgage on the house, electric bill and natural gas bill for the month of November. That is almost $1700 in bills the family will not have to worry about and allow them a short reprieve to focus on their surviving twin.
 
As always, thanks to our donors for their continued support and allowing us the trust to pursue the Nikolas Foundation’s Mission.
 
As we approach the end of the year, we will be publishing a report to let all those interested how much we have raised and how much we have spent on families. Our fundraising efforts for this great cause continues.
 
Posted on

The Foundation helps another family

Today we helped another family in need. A young couple from Billings, MT had a set of twins at 23 weeks (4 months premature). They were transported from Billings to Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City because of the gravity of their early births and the need for a higher level of care.
 
The twin girls have had a number of surgeries as they fight to go home. They have had a host of challenges like brain bleeds, heart surgery, septic shock and perforations in the bowel.
 
The oldest twin has progressed and is being sent to a hospital in the home town of this young couple to complete her journey. The youngest will be in Primary Children’s for a while longer.
 
They have several more surgeries scheduled on the long and arduous journey to get them home.
 
As you can imagine being 9 hours away, there is a lot of strain on this family to keep their home life, work life and hospital life going. Paying bills, insurance deductibles and travel are an extreme, and unexpected burden.
 
Their request was a simple one. Help pay off an overdue electric bill that had been ‘set aside’ while they tried to balance their check book, and help with gas as it has taken a large chunk of their budget to travel and spend time with their new babies.
 
The Foundation responded by paying off their overdue electric bill so they are no longer need to worry about that expense and the challenges of dealing with losing their electricity. We also bought them $300 worth of ExxonMobil gas cards which should make it easier to drive to see their youngest still in Salt Lake City.
 
Once again, this is right in the wheelhouse of the Foundation and we thank all of you for your generosity to make this mission possible. Our hope is to continue to validate our Mission here in Utah then begin to expand as we can to help in other Cities and States.
Posted on

A busy week for the Foundation

It has been a busy week for the foundation. We funded two more families this week.
 
The first we can’t talk about but it was directly in our Mission focus and the family will have one less expense to worry about.
 
The second family, a young couple with their first child, had a son named Andrew. Andrew was born with a rare disease that is described as Monosomy of his 10th Chromosome. As you can imagine, this leads to a number of physical problems, surgeries, medications and hospitalization. Andrew has been in the NICU since June 8 with no forecast when he might come home.
 
This young couple worked two jobs to buy all the baby things they needed to bring their new little one home. As fate would have it, their rental apartment had some landlord problems and became infested with insects and rodents. They were forced to move out and, because of the infestation they had to throw out all the baby things they had purchased.
 
A family member stepped in and helped them with a temporary place to live as well as paid for their move to a new apartment along with their security deposit and first months rent. We were contacted by the Social Worker as the family was not able to fund a replacement of the baby things.
 
The Social Worker arranged for the family to go to Target to set up a baby registry. They picked replacements for all that they had lost and the Foundation paid for the products so that, when Andrew comes home, they would be ready.
 
We once again are humbled by the challenges faced every day by these special needs families and are thankful that our donors have allowed us to step in and ease the challenges faced by these families. Your graciousness and kindness will be forever appreciated.
Posted on

Our Mission Continues

Our mission continues at the Nikolas Foundation. Our latest assistance was for a single mom who had a baby girl at 24 weeks. Little Riley has a list that is a page long on the challenges and has been in the NICU since April 13 with no estimated time for discharge.
 
Mom lost her job and her apartment with the challenges of having a baby in the NICU. Her father and a friend are helping her by letting her live rent free while she deals with the challenges but she owes money to the apartment complex where she used to live. She was trying to pay off the amount she owed on the apartment in small monthly increments so she did not have that hanging over her head.
 
The social worker at the NICU reached out to us and, after approval, we called the apartment complex and paid off her outstanding debt so she could focus on her baby. We are also going to buy a gas card for her so she can afford the gas to visit the hospital.
 
We hope our help lessened the burden for mom and her family and that Baby Riley gets to come home.
Posted on

We continue our mission, up close and personal

We funded our second family from The Nikolas Foundation. We are allowed to share the story, but not the names. Here is the story from the NICU Social Workers viewpoint.
 
This baby was transferred to Primary Children’s from Montana in the middle of the night. She was extremely ill with a poor prognosis, and unfortunately died a few hours after her arrival. Mother came on Life Flight with her and was alone while her baby died. This family had extremely limited finances, mother didn’t even have shoes when she arrived.
 
Mother was Native American and her tribe was able to offer some financial assistance for burial expenses, but this mother didn’t have anyone to come pick her up or pay for her to get home.
 
After exhausting several of the family’s and hospital’s resources, I reached out to see if the Nikolas Foundation would be willing to fly this mom home. There was no hesitation from the Foundation and they took action to book and pay for her flight within an hour of being requested.
 
Mother was extremely grateful to have this assistance to return home to be with her family.
 
Once again, this is the EXACT purpose of the foundation. A hardy thank you to all of you that have donated and put your faith in our mission.
Posted on

The Nikolas Foundation can now be found on Amazon Smile

In an ongoing attempt to make donations and fundraising easier, The Nikolas Foundation recently registered to be a part of Amazon Smile. By adding the Foundation to your purchase (at no extra cost to you) Amazon will donate a portion of every sale.  If you shop Amazon, please consider us as part of the program.

The URL below will take you directly to our Amazon Smile site. Thank you.

 

Posted on

Adding Corporate Sponsors

As we continue to expand our needs we have begun to approach corporate sponsors for either like/kind donations or trade for services. Today we added our first corporate sponsor. The Hampton Inn and Suites, Foothill/University was able to give us a rate structure that will not only help the Foundation funds go further but will give our special needs families a comfortable, safe place to stay that is close to the Primary Children’s Hospital. As we identify families we look forward to working with the Hampton Inn and Suites on this important mission.

A personal thanks to Rikard Pearson, General Manager and Nia Malekamu for understanding this importance of this. We will be eternally grateful. If your travels bring you to Salt Lake City, we would highly recommend The Hampton Inn and Suites, Foothill/University!

We look forward to expanding our corporate partnerships. Watch here for updates.

 

Corporate Sponsors Page