Alexandra King:
Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital has announced their decision to open up a new Center for Special Needs. The new center is on target to open early next year.
Molly Coletta:
The center is gonna help kids and families who are currently on a two-year waiting list, um, with a more accessible care center and it will help kids and adolescents with intellectual and developmental disorders like autism and down syndrome.”>
Alexandra King:
That was Molly Coletta, the executive director of Ottothon at Syracuse University. Yesterday, in honor of Child Health Day, Ottothon revealed that the money they raise this year will go towards the new center.
Molly Coletta:
We are trying to raise two-hundred and 25 thousand dollars.
Alexandra King:
This is their highest fundraising goal yet and participants like Molly are setting high personal goals in order to reach it.
Molly Coletta:
I’m trying to hit three thousand this year and I have faith, but a lot of the fundraising happens in event on November 9th, so we gotta see how that day unfolds.
Alexandra King:
Construction for the new center will begin almost immediately.
Alexandra King, N-C-C News.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) – Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital has announced its decision to open a new Center for Special Needs for children with developmental, physical, and intellectual disabilities.
In honor of Oct. 7 being Child Health Day, Syracuse University’s OttoTHON Dance Marathon Committee announced that the money their members raise this year will go towards making this new center possible, according to OttoTHON’s Executive Director Molly Coletta.
Coletta said the fundraising goal for OttoTHON this year is $225,000 and she has already raised over $2,000 personally.
“I’m trying to hit 3,000 this year and I have faith, but a lot of the fundraising happens in-event on November 9,” Coletta said.
The money from OttoTHON, along with a $3-million donation from Tom Golisano, will make the creation of this center and the hiring of highly-trained professionals possible.
OttoTHON’s Internal Director Julia Gregoire is excited to see that this center will allow the hospital to hire more specialists and provide more assessment opportunities for children and their families.
“I just imagine a parent hearing that your child needs to go for testing but they have nowhere to go for two years,” Gregoire said.
The Center will include new recreation and sports programs for the children, a family behavior analysis program, and new education tracks for caretakers to learn more about these disabilities. The units that diagnose disorders on the autism spectrum will also be improved and renovated.
Construction for the new center will begin almost immediately and is on track to open early next year.
Nat Sound – Wind
Julia Gregoire:
I am Julia Gregoire. I am the Internal Director for OttoTHON 2019.
The center is really important because it provides comprehensive coordinated care for these kids that is not seen anywhere else in New York state.
The center is kind of unique across the country. It helps these kids who are specifically on 22-month or plus wait lists.
I just imagine, like, a parent hearing that your child needs to go for testing but they don’t know where to go for two years. So this center is going to help increase the amount of assessments they can have and the amount of specialists they can hire.
So, our hospital liaison, Danielle Latoure, she spoke to us about our funds going there. She kind of created the proposition that our funds can help build because it was something they really wanted to start and they need as much money as they can. So she kind of created that idea and ran it through with us. We talked it over and decided that we wanted to put our time and money towards it.
