Las Floristas
The Las Floristas Children’s Charities, a nonprofit, all-volunteer organization, was started more than 65 years ago by a group of civic-minded women who wished to help children and adolescents with physical disabilities lead more productive lives. For all those years, Las Floristas’ signature Headdress Ball has given it broad visibility in the philanthropic community.
Las Floristas has exclusively supported Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center Pediatrics activities for four decades. With gifts totaling more than $7 million to date, Las Floristas has funded many Rancho programs, always concentrating on the special needs of children.
The devotion to our special children has helped provide care and assistance to thousands with birth defects, brain damage, severe injuries resulting from accidents, and other acquired disabilities. Our goal is to help children return to school with the confidence to take on new challenges and the tools to discover and use every bit of the ability within them. Every day, each of us at Las Floristas proves that one person can make a difference in the life of a child.
Some of the many programs Las Floristas has funded include:
- The Kenneth and Harlyne Norris Center for Applied Technology (CART)
- Rancho’s Las Floristas Pediatric Wheelchair Sports Program.
- Las Floristas Medical Transport Van
- Nancy Dillon Pathokinesiology Computer Center
- Las Floristas Neurospsychology Laboratory
- Las Floristas College Scholarship/Awards Program
- Children’s Carnival Day
- Birthday Celebrations for Children with Disabilities
Here are a few highlights from three Las Floristas-sponsored projects at Rancho:
- The Computer Therapy Lab at CART offers computers for special needs children with special keyboards, and other accessibility options so that children can again use the computer to learn and play. Las Floristas provided special pediatric software and peripheral equipment designed especially for special needs children.
- The Wheelchair Sports Program provides 50 of Rancho’s inpatients and outpatients with the opportunity to participate in success-oriented physical activities. The program was started more than 15 years ago and has been fully funded by Las Floristas since its inception. The Rancho Wheelchair Sports Program is the only comprehensive wheelchair sports program in California that caters to youth and is completely free of charge for participants. Many of our wheelchair sports program athletes not only graduate from high school, but attend college and participate in sports. Our athletes are becoming educated, goal-oriented and productive members of society.
- The Las Floristas Scholarship/Awards Program has already helped more than 20 young people with their goals of obtaining a college degree. Two of those students have begun working on their Masters degrees.The Scholarship program is the crowning jewel of the rehabilitation process for Rancho’s children. It is hopes and dreams that build the future, and education is its path. At Rancho, with the assistance of Las Floristas, every child and family is made aware that opportunities exist for each child to succeed at all educational levels and that with hard work and loving support, these special children can realize the power of their dreams. Neither disability nor financial issues are allowed to deter the success of our children.
Providing Comprehensive Care
The Department of Pediatrics at Rancho Los Amigos continues to provide comprehensive evaluation and ongoing medical supervision for children with physical disabilities from infancy to 21 years of age. Some of the disorders treated at Rancho include spinal cord injury, traumatic head injury, children on ventilators or with tracheostomy tubes, meningitis and encephalitis, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, muscular dystrophy and spinal muscular atrophy.
The Las Floristas Commitment
Each member of Las Floristas devotes her personal volunteer time and energy both to fund-raising and to personal contact with the children we sponsor. We are active participants at our clinics, and especially enjoy the “hands-on” work we do at the festive holiday parties and special projects created for our patients.
Irene Gilgoff, M.D., Chairperson of Rancho’s Department of Pediatrics, stated, “The support of Las Floristas continues to uplift us. Your dedication to the children of Rancho continues to give us hope, and continues to allow us to dream.”
Annual Headdress Ball
Las Floristas signature Headdress Ball raises much of the funding for these outstanding programs. If you wish to make a donation to make a donation to Las Floristas to help the children of Rancho, please make your check payable to Las Floristas, Inc. and mail it to:
Las Floristas, Inc.
c/o Center for Applied Rehabilitation Technology
Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center
7601 E. Imperial Highway
Downey, CA 90242