Starlight Foundation's Gift to Chronically and Terminally Ill Children in Delaware

By Elizabeth Scheinberg

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20131222/NEWS03/312220037/Teaching-sick-children-boosted-by-tablet-gift

...the school serves a tiny student body with unique needs. Its students all have some kind of major medical condition that makes attending a regular school difficult or impossible.“Most of our students would be home-bound if they weren’t here,” said Coleen O’Connor, the Fist State School’s director...

The First State School is generally unknown to most. I had my first knowledgeable introduction to the school when a friend found her daughter a candidate for the program. It's made all the difference for our Maura Grier, who in her own right is a quite an amazing young lady with an amazing family to match, and whom the NJ article highlights:

But the equipment is especially helpful in dealing with some of the symptoms the First State students have to overcome if they are to learn.
Take Maura Grier, who’s in 7th grade. She has several health issues, including a connective tissue disorder that makes many of her joints and limbs weak.
Maura’s mom, Colleen, says the tablets allow her to read and watch educational videos in the positions that are most comfortable for her.
“If she isn’t feeling well, she can work from any position. She’s supposed to keep her head straight as often as possible, so she can set the tablet up on books so that it’s basically at eye-level,” she said. “It’s so light that she can carry it with her and put it where she needs it to be. You can’t read a book like that, and you certainly can’t write like that.”

Writing can be painful for Maura, especially if she has to do a lot of it. So typing on an iPad presents a huge advantage.“If I have to write a lot, my hands start to hurt. I get frustrated and it’s hard to concentrate,” she said. “I just can’t learn very well like that.”

And since the general fiscal year is not quite at a close and we know many of you are still contemplating your your end-of-year write-offs - here's our endorsement of the school and it's directors pitch for donations:

It’s a huge advantage for our teachers, because they can take one student aside and work with them individually while the others work at their own pace on the tablets,” O’Connor said.Ideally, the school would have a tablet for every student, though they’re getting by now by sharing. Potential donors can help by visiting starlight.org and clicking on the “Starlight Wish Lists” tab.