Areas of Support
Impacting Lives
Explore our areas of need, where your support can make a transformative impact. Your contributions to our Annual Hope Appeal help fund the following essential programs at Madonna.
St. Benedict’s Fund
Many people are just one accident or illness away from a financial crisis. The St. Benedict Fund was established as an emergency fund to assist Madonna patients who need help to emerge from a crisis. Your gifts provide immediate relief, assisting with the purchase of medical equipment not covered by insurance, transportation, utilities, rent, gas and basic needs so a patient can fully participate in therapy.
First Hope Equipment Fund
The First Hope Equipment Fund helps relieve barriers for children and adults with spinal cord injuries, brain trauma, stroke and other neurological conditions. Last year, donors like you helped us purchase a variety of fixtures, braces, walking aides, wheelchairs, bathroom modifications and basic communication technologies for patients.
Therapeutic Learning Center (TLC) Fund
With an onsite classroom on each Madonna campus, the Therapeutic Learning Center (TLC) helps student patients maintain and, if necessary, re-learn academic work as well as adopt new study skills and learning strategies with an educational specialist while at Madonna.
Pediatric patients are exposed to real-life challenges within the classroom and work with their therapy teams to overcome any limitations that would prevent them from returning to their community school system. Madonna’s educational specialists work with the students’ teachers and staff to make any necessary accommodations for the transition back to their academic setting. These services are offered at no cost to the families of patients and are completely supported through philanthropy.
Adaptive Sports Fund
To encourage a healthy lifestyle and community participation, Madonna offers an adapted sports and recreation program for inpatients, outpatients and community members. Activities include golf, wheelchair tennis, power soccer, bowling, fishing, billiards and wheelchair basketball. Recreation therapists offer open recreation times, workshops and tournaments.
Gifts to this fund help cover the cost of open recreation times at area facilities as well as the purchase of equipment for the adapted sports and recreation equipment loan program so patients and community members can try out equipment before purchasing for themselves. Loan items include sports wheelchairs, recumbent bikes, hand cycles and adapted fishing equipment.
Pediatrics Fund
The Patient & Family Activities Fund supports activities such as holiday parties, special events, theme days, arts & crafts and special performances. The Pediatric Incentive Fund is a small-prize fund that allows therapists to work with pediatric patients on a plan to achieve something meaningful to them as they progress through required therapies.
Programs Fund
Gifts to Madonna can be designated to a specific program specialty area such as our stroke, traumatic brain injury or spinal cord injury programs. Additionally, gifts can be designated to specific therapies such as the physical, occupational or speech therapy departments. These program funds are often used to purchase new patient equipment for the area or provide advanced training and education to add to the expertise of Madonna therapists.
Additional Areas of Need
Chaplain Outreach and Chapel Services
Madonna’s chaplains and priests minister to patients through individual outreach and chapel services, especially important during the height of the pandemic when many patients were isolated from their families. In the last five years, our chaplains and priests have served patients representing 35 different faiths. Gifts to the Madonna chapel fund assist the Mission Services staff on both campuses to provide special programming and ongoing spiritual care to patients along their rehabilitation journey.
St. Jane de Chantal Long Term Care Service
St. Jane de Chantal Long Term Care Services on Madonna’s Lincoln Campus has an outstanding reputation for compassionate, skilled nursing care. St. Jane de Chantal is also Nebraska’s only non-profit skilled nursing facility that provides chronic ventilator care, and it currently serves the highest number of ventilator-dependent residents in the state.
St. Jane de Chantal is committed to providing this specialty programming, recognizing the statewide need. While facing the financial challenges of providing care in a stagnant reimbursement rate market, St. Jane de Chantal has saved Nebraska nearly $30 million over the last nine years in its care for some of the most clinically complex individuals.
Nature Sacred Garden Project
Progressive healthcare institutions like Madonna are reimagining the ways they can improve patient care and support the well-being of their clinical team members. Enter Nature Sacred, a nonprofit organization that has aligned itself with more than 100 communities nationwide to plant urban gardens where people can reconnect with nature to promote healing and mindful reflection. Both Omaha and Lincoln are a part of Nature Sacred’s growing network, and many of these sacred spaces are located on Madonna’s campuses. Donations directed to this project support the maintenance of these gardens.
Research and Technology
For more than 20 years, the Research Institute for Rehabilitation Science and Engineering, a pioneering center embedded within Madonna Rehabilitation Hospitals, has united scientists, engineers, clinicians, patients and community leaders to advance the science of medical rehabilitation. With a proven track record of securing federally and privately funded grants, the Institute has been at the vanguard of developing patient-centered solutions and conducting pivotal clinical research studies. This collaborative environment fosters innovation and drives progress, which translates into real-world benefits for Madonna’s patients. One such example of the Institute’s work is the patented piece of technology called the Madonna ICARE by SportsArt, which is now used in hospitals and rehabilitation facilities worldwide. Gifts to the Research Institute support equipment and supply purchases as well as fund groundbreaking research.
Awards and Scholarships
Gifts to Madonna’s Education and Nursing Scholarship Fund allow employees to advance their educational and career goals. Last fiscal year, 18 Madonna staff members participated in the tuition reimbursement program, taking 50 classes at nine area colleges and universities. Madonna reimbursed a total of $26,500 in tuition dollars. The Foundation also funded 10 new and renewed endowed nursing scholarships and one therapy scholarship.