Variety - The Children's Charity of Illinois

Variety – The Children’s Charity of Illinois’ signature fundraising initiative, the annual Gold Heart Pin Drive, aims to help children in need by asking people to literally wear their heart on their sleeve. Running from Thanksgiving through Valentine’s Day, this year’s Gold Heart Pin is adorned with everyone’s favorite amphibian, Kermit the Frog. To send a Variety e-card from Kermit himself, or to view a personal message about the campaign from Variety friend, Whoopi Goldberg, go to http://varietyecard.org/.

Sold for $2 at area movie theatres, the Gold Heart pins are collected and worn by millions of people around the world as symbols of their support for Variety and the children who are helped by Variety funded programs and facilities. The Gold Heart Pin campaign is one of Variety's most recognized and successful global fundraising programs (Variety has 54 chapters in 13 countries – all of which participate in the Drive). The program was created in 1991 in Great Britain by a Variety International board member, who thought to create gold pins in the shape of hearts to raise funds to assist children in need.

For the past seven years, Variety has launched a partnership with the motion picture industry to design and market the Gold Heart pins around Hollywood movie properties. Each year, Variety partners with a major motion picture studio to design a new Gold Heart pin around a movie or a movie character from that studio. Gold Heart pins with tie-ins to universally recognized characters Mickey Mouse, E.T. , Shrek , and Spider-Man have helped raise awareness of Variety's work and have generated millions of dollars for children in need. More than 2,000 theatres around the United States sell the pins and display promotional posters, counter cards, in-theatre slides, film trailers and other materials. This partnership between Variety and the motion picture industry has raised $95 million dollars worldwide to date.

ABOUT VARIETY OF ILLINOIS:
It’s Variety of Illinois’ belief that every child deserves access to lead a full and active life – on and off the playing field. Dedicated to promoting and protecting the health and well-being of children in need, Variety of Illinois implements an array of programs such as “Kids on the Go,” which provides adaptive sports equipment that insurance won’t cover, and the annual Gold Heart Pin Drive. Through the efforts of enthusiastic volunteers, generous corporate contributors and various fundraising endeavors, Variety remains true to its 80-plus year heritage by bringing children real, tangible help. Visit www.varietyofillinois.org to learn more about the chapter.

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CHICAGO, IL (September 2009) – Variety Children’s Charity of Illinois presented two Chicago Public Schools with grants in amount of $5000 each this month to assist them in obtaining adaptive sports equipment for students with disabilities (a photo of the check presentation is available for release upon request). Blair Early Childhood Center (6751 W. 63rd Place) will use the grant money to acquire updated adaptive sports equipment for physical therapy and Christopher School (5042 S. Artesian) will use it to resurrect its adaptive sports programs.

“We are thrilled that Variety of Illinois selected Blair,” said Principal Karen Bryar. “We are celebrating our 25th anniversary next month and much of our adaptive sports equipment is original and broken down.” With new adaptive bikes ranging from $1800 to $3000, Bryar admits the old ones have been “extremely difficult to replace.”

Rather than identifying a few children to donate adaptive sports equipment to, Variety chose schools because the funds will be used to purchase communal PE equipment. “This way, every child in the building can benefit from the use of new adaptive bikes, trikes and sport chairs,” adds Bryar. Blair services about 150 students between ages of 3 to 6, all of whom have disabilities – either physical or cognitive. Christopher School services children grades 1st to 8th. The school has approximately 250 students of which the majority has disabilities.

ABOUT VARIETY OF ILLINOIS:
It’s Variety’s belief that every child deserves access to lead a full and active life – on and off the playing field. Dedicated to promoting and protecting the health and well-being of children in need, Variety implements an array of programs such as “Kids on the Go,” which provides adaptive sports equipment that insurance won’t cover and exorbitant costs exceed families’ means. Through the efforts of enthusiastic volunteers, generous corporate contributors and various fundraising endeavors, Variety remains true to its 80-plus year heritage by bringing children real, tangible help. Visit www.varietyofillinois.org to learn more.

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Variety - The Children's Charity’s Kids on the Go! Program provides equipment to enable children to participate in their communities. To be considered, complete the following application form:

http://varietyclub26.org/KidsOnTheGoApp.pdf