Rocky Mountain Children’s Health Foundation raises $580,000 at 13th Annual Kaleidoscope Gala

A bountiful evening ended up raising a substantial amount of money for the Rocky Mountain Children’s Health Foundation during its 13th Annual Kaleidoscope Gala, which garnered $580,000 for the organization.

Funds from the gala, which was held at The Ritz-Carlton Denver on Feb. 22, will go toward helping families with a sick or injured child pay for vital expenses such as gas money, help with mortgages or rent and other things that fall by the wayside when a child comes down with a serious illness.

Cathy Sandoval, Rocky Mountain Children’s Health Foundation’s CEO, said that transportation becomes a necessity for many families when they  are seeking care for their sick child.

“Let’s say you’re living in rural Colorado, for instance, and unfortunately, your child comes down,” Sandoval said. “That means multiple appointments. It means car rides, missing work, all that kind of stuff. So, we step in and support them in whatever way makes more sense to them, like maybe they need just gas cards so they can get back and forth.

“Occasionally, the treatment is so intensive that these families are missing so much work that they end up almost on the edge of eviction or losing their homes,” Sandoval continued. “So, we can even step in and pay their mortgage or their rent to keep them housed, so they’ve got somewhere to return to … If we can step in and help just take care of that problem, then they can focus on their child, which is what we’re all about.”

The Rocky Mountain Children’s Health Foundation serves 1,700 families through its  payment assistance program, with an additional 6,000 to 7,000 families receiving smaller levels of assistance, such as car seats, books or other resources the nonprofit provides.

The Kaleidoscope Gala was first held in 2010 as an effort to support families going through childhood illnesses who needed help with their expenses. It’s steadily grown over time and now allows the foundation to serve many more families than they could in the beginning.

This year’s Kaleidoscope Gala saw the nonprofit recognize Shea’s Village, a family foundation formed in memory of Shea, a teenager who battled neuroblastoma for years but succumbed to the illness. .

Shea’s Village has helped the Rocky Mountain Children’s Health Foundation expand its support for pediatric patients, including facilitating the addition of a new dog to the PAWS for Rocky Mountain Children’s Hospital program and helping to create a Teen Lounge at that hospital, where Shea received treatment.

“Shea’s Village does a couple things for us,” Sandoval said. “They are very much dog-lovers, and so they have taken over funding and helped us secure a second highly trained facility dog. These are like therapy dogs, really. They go to two years of training — we now have two. Their names are Posey and Lemon, and they work at Rocky Mountain Children’s helping kids with their treatment.

“We know having a dog takes away so much of the stress,” Sandoval continued.

Talley Nataka, a teenager who has recovered from acute lymphoblastic leukemia, said Posey and Lemon were instrumental in her recovery.

“I did two and a half  years of chemotherapy, transfusions and procedures,” Nataka said. “I rang my bell signifying the end of all my treatment last September and got to celebrate! I truly could not have done this without my family, friends, the dance studio, and my doctors and nurses at the hospital, especially the dogs, Posey and Lemon.”

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