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Service project empowers kids
in U−M's NeuroRehab program

Children in U−M’s summer NeuroRehab program worked together last year on a service project aimed at empowering kids with disabilities while helping kids in Africa.

The project allowed the children to maintain an outward focus and gain a sense of self-empowerment, according to Elaine Ledwon−Robinson, speech pathologist and director of the program.

The project included a study skills group that put together boxes of school supplies to be sent to Kijabe Hospital in Kenya, a creative writing group that wrote letters to the package recipients and a newspaper group that researched and published a newspaper about Africa.

The program participants recently raised $500 to sponsor children and their parents who are part of a spina bifida support group in Africa, allowing them to have a holiday party, including a trip to a local museum.

Brighter smiles

Ypsilanti dentist Gary Sasaki, DDS, provides a great opportunity for patients to have their smile professionally whitened and make the difference in the life of a child at the same time. As a part of the nationwide Smiles for Life Foundation, clients can have their teeth whitened for only $200 with all the money being donated to children’s charities. Last year Dr. Sasaki donated more than $4,000 to Mott Children's Hospital. He’s participating in the program again from March through June 2008.