Ellie's Army Foundation

Our goal is to alleviate the financial burdens and stressors that families of children and young adults with life-threatening illnesses are experiencing. By providing them with much needed financial assistance, these families are able to then focus on their child's fight to survive (rather than how they are going to pay their next bill).

Ellie's Army Foundation has several strategies that are in place to help address the myriad of problems that children, young adults, and their families face due to the diagnosis of life-threatening illness. Through social media, contact with doctors, nurses, hospital social workers, and word of mouth, we reach out to families dealing with financial insecurity. We then work with each applicant on an individual basis to help ascertain how to best meet their needs. We provide assistance with medical bills, Insurance co-pays, and other medical costs associated with each child's or young adult's specific needs. We help pay for mortgage, rent and utility bills, food, clothing, and emergency expenses. In an effort to address the specific population of cystic fibrosis patients that have had a transplant and are facing financial issues, we have set up Ellie's Fund at Duke University Medical center.

Ellie's Army Foundation has a completely voluntary staff, led by the Founder who was a parent of a child with a life-threatening illness. This dedicated staff has an understanding and depth of knowledge regarding the issues faced by these families. Historically, we have taken a "hands-on approach" with each individual applicant and therefore have the ability to identify the problem and form an action plan that is most helpful in each case. Through a large network of doctors, nurses, social workers, and social media support groups and awareness groups, we are able to reach out to these families. Our fundraising efforts have helped us meet the needs of the families that have applied for assistance. We look forward to growing our network and funds so that we can continue to help more of these families in need.

Ellie's Army has been able to expand its original mission from an organization that only offered assistance to families of children afflicted with cystic fibrosis, to now offering assistance to all families of children and young adults with any life-threatening illness. We have expanded our program at Duke University Hospital (Ellie's Fund) to assist more families there dealing with needs of assistance, related to double lung transplants. As we continue to help many families in need, we are receiving phenomenal feedback on what we are doing for them. Our ability to tell the individual stories through the family's testimonies helps raise awareness and funding. These stories are critical in our success in attracting new donors, in that they are able to see, directly, where their donations are being put to use.