Providing comfort to children & their families.
From hospital rooms to holiday tables, The Kara Fund offers practical help and heartfelt support to children with serious illnesses and the families who love them.
The Kara Fund provides support to seriously ill children in our Central New York community through four umbrella programs: Comfort Care, Home Care, Family Care, and Community Care. Each program allocates resources in different ways to bring comfort to these children and their families.
Comfort Care
Comfort Care helps children and families in a hospital setting. Kara Fund purchases have included a blanket warmer (for seriously ill children who feel cold for any reason); comfortable, heated treatment chairs (specially designed to make children comfortable for long stretches of time as they receive their medication); wheelchairs (to alleviate shortages); computers (to help take children’s minds off of their stressful situation); medical demonstration equipment; air mattresses for hospital stayovers; games; over-the-bed tables for pediatric cancer patients; and overnight bags for families with unexpected stays in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) overnight sleep room. We also purchase many kinds of gift cards for families to provide an array of necessities including meals, gas (transportation costs can add up quickly; families use gas cards to visit specialty clinics for their child’s care and to afford the expense of traveling to and from the hospital), Uber, cafeterias, and many more.
Comfort Care funds several initiatives that seek to bring comfort to children and families, including:
Volunteers from The Kara Fund package and deliver large quantities of heating pads, blankets, water bottles, and tote bags to children with sickle cell at the Upstate Cancer Center. The supplies help the children stay warm and hydrated as they struggle with this disease. We also sponsor the Thriving Together Sickle Cell event, which brings families together for a day of fun and togetherness filled with activities, food, and comfort kits for the children.
Thriving Together Sickle Cell Event
Thriving Together Sickle Cell Event
The Kara Fund supports CHOICES, a pediatric palliative care group at Upstate Cancer Center that is available to any child or family suffering from a life threatening or life altering illness. We provide comfort and GO bags and offer other kinds of support.
Run through our associations with CompassionNet, Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital, and CHOICES, this service is for families whose babies have a terminal prenatal diagnosis, and sadly a very short life. We fund a photo session for the family so that they can have a lasting memory of their baby. Used at Upstate and Crouse hospitals, this program brings both the parents and their extended family immeasurable comfort and has given us some of our most heartfelt feedback.
This service records the heartbeat of a baby with a life-limiting illness and transfers the sound to a stuffed animal, creating a comforting keepsake for loved ones. Alternatively, a handprint or footprint can be imprinted on a piece of jewelry, offering another beautiful way for families to cherish their child’s memory.
We provide support for families that face unexpected overnights in Crouse Hospital’s Walter R. G. Baker Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) family sleep room. The Kara Fund provides overnight stay essentials like toothbrushes and soap, comfort bags filled with snacks, meals, and other general needs to families. We also provide snacks for and other support for nursing mothers and for the Family Lounge, as well as comfort bags for families to help them transition to home with their baby. We work with the NICU staff to tailor these bags appropriately for each family. Additionally, we provide assistance for specialized training and support to the NICU.
Crouse Foundation check to support the Family Lounge Center at the NICU
NICU Program Crouse Foundation meeting
Children suffering from Chronic Critical Illness (CCI) have extremely serious and substantial long-term care needs. 13% spend more than 6 months in acute care hospitals, half need at least 9 daily medications, and most need at least 4 subspecialists, putting a huge strain on families. Many have limited (or no) childcare options, half of parents stop working to care for their child, and there is social isolation, all of which lead to mounting pressures on their mental health; support and comfort are urgently needed—continuously—for this vulnerable group. We support 20–30 CCI children and their families on a monthly basis.
CCI Program check presentation
Home Care
Home Care provides support in a home setting; typically, that means babies and mothers coming home from a hospital, or children and families going into and out of the hospital as needed. We provide roughly $1,000–$1,500 of goods each month to families. This is a partnership with Nascentia Health. Through our Home Care program, The Kara Fund also supports a number of initiatives and services provided by CompassionNet, a pediatric palliative care program that supports families caring for children with a life-threatening illness. This is a $60,000 commitment over two years by The Kara Fund.
Family Care
Family Care helps in unique ways, providing comfort bags, air conditioners, flights for siblings, car seats, meal cards and vouchers, gas cards, bereavement items, and other comfort supplies. We partner with social workers who understand our mission to help us identify needs that cannot be met by hospitals, insurance, or a family’s finances. Partners that help us match our resources to children with serious illnesses and their families include Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital, Crouse Hospital, Nascentia Health (formerly Visiting Nurse Association of CNY), CHOICES palliative care group, CompassionNet, and others.
Families faced with the loss of a child often have financial difficulties with funeral expenses. The Kara Fund supports these families with financial assistance in these extremely difficult times.
Community Care
Community Care helps larger groups of families by providing comfort throughout the year through activities like Walk to Remember, Baseball Night for CompassionNet families, and bereavement vigils. All of these programs and events help to demonstrate to families that their community is with their child and family during this difficult time.
Walk to Remember event
Walk to Remember event
We all experience holidays in different ways. For families with seriously ill children, the holidays can be difficult and even depressing. These struggling families often feel isolated from their community, and for many, the financial burden of supplying the family with a special meal is often prohibitive and an additional emotional strain. Last year, we helped 120 families have a holiday meal, to give them the comfort of knowing that their community is behind them, concerned for them, and willing to help them as they continue to fight their serious illness.
The Kara Fund will be the sponsor of Syracuse Stage’s production of “Frozen” in 2026. We will be providing tickets to the final dress rehearsal of the musical. We hope to provide 80 children and their families with a wonderful evening. (320 people overall)
