In Canada, Easter Seals is a group of charitable organizations which provide opportunities for children with physical and/or mental disabilities. Founded in 1922 by a group of ten Rotary Clubs, it sought to emulate the success of the American Easter Seals program. In 1945, the first Canadian Easter Seals was introduced in Alberta. Today, licensed agencies work across Canada to provide programs and services to over 40,000 children and their families. Easter Seals Canada is considered to be well-funded and more known than their American counterpart.
The most well known services are the camp programs. There are 12 camps across Canada providing camp opportunities to over 4600 kids with physical and/or mental disabilities. These camps provide children with opportunities to do activities such as: sledge hockey, archery, arts & crafts, music & drama, campfires, accessible High Ropes, camping in a tent, other fun sports, swimming, pottery, and much more. Camps are provided to children at little or no cost to the families. Easter Seals also provides services such as mobility aids, adaptive computers, communication aids, and wheelchair-accessibility modifications to vehicles and homes.
Common disabilities that Easter Seals helps are cerebral palsy, autism, muscular dystrophy, and spina bifida, among many others.
Famous quotes containing the words easter and/or seals:
“Why wont they let a year die without bringing in a new one on the instant, cant they use birth control on time? I want an interregnum. The stupid years patter on with unrelenting feet, never stopping—rising to little monotonous peaks in our imaginations at festivals like New Year’s and Easter and Christmas—But, goodness, why need they do it?”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Social and scientific progress are assured, sir, once our great system of postpossession payments is in operation, not the installment plan, no sir, but a system of small postpossession payments that clinch the investment. No possible rational human wish unfulfilled. A man with a salary of fifty dollars a week can start payments on a Rolls-Royce, the Waldorf-Astoria, or a troupe of trained seals if he so desires.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)