Ellen Blair has helped improve the quality of life of thousands of children by founding Kids’ Pages Cares Cares, a non-profit that assists underserved, disadvantaged, and neglected children Denver’s suburbs. Most people do not realize that there is such a great need in the Denver’s affluent suburbs. But poverty does exist. There are homeless families at virtually every school. Because of the area’s relative affluence, very few agencies exist to aid impoverished families. Moreover, such families are often too embarrassed to seek help in obtaining food, medical care, clothing, and supplementary education. Kids’ Pages Cares responds to this problem by providing help anonymously.
Ellen has created an innovative nonprofit organization for aiding distressed families and their children. Via Kids’ Pages Cares Magazine, Ellen leverages free or reduced-cost services and goods from the publication’s advertisers, enticing profit-driven businesses to participate in philanthropy. Ellen has nurtured a network of businesses, encouraging their community-minded aspirations. This network produces results: During 2004, Kids’ Pages Cares assisted over 1100 children by providing clothing, coats, backpacks, dentistry, pediatric healthcare services, optometry, kindergarten tuition, enrichment resources, and much more.
Ellen and her husband, David, volunteer over 80 hours per week to run the organization and publish its community-based magazine, called Kids’ Pages Cares. The magazine has a circulation that reaches 75,000 families. Ellen and her husband have also subsidized Kids’ Pages Cares out of their own bank accounts many times, so that the organization has never had to turn down a legitimate request to assist a family or child in need.
Ellen and David’s commitment has inspired friends and peers:Twelve other mothers now volunteer their time and talents on a regular basis to the cause. The Kids Pages Cares project has given families in crises hope. It also provides a model of what a nonprofit organization can do to help make the goal of a united, caring community a reality.
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