If ever there was a worthwhile charitable cause for the workers' compensation industry, Kids' Chance is it. The charity, comprised of 28 independent state organizations and a relatively new national entity placing them under a common umbrella, exists to provide scholarships and educational assistance to children of workers who have been killed or injured on the job.
For those of us in the industry, the need for such a charitable effort should be blatantly obvious.
Founded in Georgia in 1988 by Workers' Compensation Attorney Robert Clyatt, the effort has grown over the years, and today Kids' Chance has provided over 2,000 scholarships totaling more than $5,000,000. The national organization has been started to help expand the mission to states where no group yet exists, and to give the effort a national voice in a very worthy cause.
And that is where we come in. We were very pleased to announce recently that Kids' Chance would be the Designated Charitable Endeavor of WorkersCompensation.com. We have a strong national audience, and within that audience lays additional help, additional dollars, and additional commitment that can make this a true coast to coast scholarship organization.
Our audience is also quite diverse, and areas of our site are well utilized by injured workers. One of the challenges Kids' Chance has, believe it or not, is a shortage of applicants in some states. They want to get the word out to injured workers and their families that many states have organizations prepared to help, and they want to build awareness in that effort.
Over the next few months we will be engaged in several efforts to support their cause, and will be focused to help with these primary objectives:
- Build awareness for applicants
- Establish Kids' Chance organizations in states currently lacking one
- Raise money for expanded efforts and more scholarship opportunities
You will already see KC ads running throughout our website, and a landing page dedicated to their cause will soon be available. We hope to establish a discussion forum on our site dedicated to their efforts, and have offered assistance in several other areas, including some elements of social media support.
But this is not about us. It is about an extremely worthwhile common cause on which all sides of an adversarial industry can agree. I write this today to simply ask you to get involved and support this program. The national organization has a partner program, and entities like Sedgwick, Paradigm, IWP and The College of Workers' Compensation Lawyers have stepped up to support this effort.
Your company can be there too.
A list of current state organizations can be found here. If your state is not listed, contact them today to find out how you can change that.
And if you are working with injured workers' let them know about this program so that they may take advantage of it.
It's easy really, if everyone pitches in. This cause makes sense. The need is there. Please support this where you can, and get your company and others involved. All that we are asking is that you help give Kids' a Chance.
That's not so difficult now, is it?
Download the flyer in the attachment box to the right of this article or go to http://www.kidschance.org for more information.