HANNAH GENESER FOUNDATION INC
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Mission Statement
Making the World a Safer Place for Children: The Hannah Geneser Foundation will promote childhood safety through public awareness and educational opportunities. In addition, the Hannah Geneser Foundation will help bring awareness to organ, eye and tissue donation through advocacy and outreach.
About This Cause
We are often asked, “What is the Hannah Geneser Foundation and what do you do?” It is difficult to condense our eight-plus-year journey into a brief response, but this is our story… On March 21, 2011, four-year-old Hannah Ray Geneser died in a tragic accident when a screen gave way and she fell through an open window. In response to her devastating and untimely death, the Hannah Geneser Foundation (HGF), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, was established by her family in November of the same year. In the beginning, our focus was on window safety education and outreach. See below for some examples of our outreach: 1. Partnering with local police departments and school districts, the HGF provides window safety materials to Safety Town and Safety City pre-kindergarten students. A window safety activity sheet, a curriculum guide for teachers, and the children's window safety book, "If Kids Could Float" are all included in student packets. More than 7000 pre-kindergarten students and their parents/guardians have received window safety instruction at the various Safety Towns/Safety Cities – including children in Altoona, West Des Moines, Clive, Johnston, Waukee, Windsor Heights and Urbandale. 2. More than 50,000 HGF Window Safety Brochures have been distributed (new parent packets at UnityPoint Health – Des Moines, including Blank Hospital, metro elementary schools, pre-schools, day-cares, and various pediatric clinics in Central Iowa, etc.) 3. Since 2012, the Foundation has provided annual scholarships in Hannah’s name to Valley High Schools seniors who have demonstrated making a positive impact working with children during high school and plan to pursue a post-secondary degree in early childhood education. In 2022 our 10th annual scholarship was awarded. 4. Jamie Geneser, Hannah’s Father and President of the Hannah Geneser Foundation travels the Metro and beyond presenting the Foundation's "Hannah's Hope for Window Safety" to parents, childcare providers, breakfast clubs and other groups. In 2016, he was a keynote speaker for Blank Children’s Hospital’s annual Preventing Childhood Injury State Conference. 5. In 2016, the HGF sponsored an evening childhood injury prevention seminar for childcare providers at Blank Children’s Hospital. Two educational sessions on childhood injury prevention were offered and childcare providers who attended received 2.0 Health and Safety Continuing Education Units (CEUs) from the Iowa Department of Human Services. As the Foundation evolved and expanded, so did our mission… to include organ donation awareness along with childhood injury prevention. Hannah was a multiple organ donor who helped save or improve the lives of three people. Because of the HGF advocacy for organ donation, the Geneser family was a nationally recognized Donor Family at the 2016 Transplant Games of America, where Hannah was honored for her gifts of sight and life. View video of Jamie & Shanda speaking on behalf of the Iowa Donor Network. The Foundation continues to educate on and advocate for organ donation. Our efforts on behalf of Hannah and her Foundation have been strengthened by the enduring partnership we’ve shared through the years with Blank Children’s Hospital’s Center for Advocacy & Outreach and SafeKidsIowa. Through this collaboration, we learned that unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death in children (0-19 years) in the United States – more than 7500 annual fatalities. This connection with Blank and SafeKids ultimately led us to an opportunity to make a huge difference in the well-being and safety of Central Iowa children. In January 2018, we were asked to fund a space at Iowa Methodist Medical Center/Blank Children’s Hospital. The Foundation eagerly agreed to finance the construction and furnishing of The Hannah Geneser Learning Center and Safety Store – a 500 sq.ft. space in the main hallway at Iowa Methodist Medical Center. Completed in October 2018, the space is a brick and mortar representation of our Foundation's mission to make the world a safer place for children. More than 70 different safety devices are for sale at cost or below in the non-profit store, which is open M-F. In addition to selling child safety equipment (window safety devices, lifejackets, bicycle helmets, infant/child car seats and furniture and television tethers to name a few), trained staff and volunteers are on hand to help parents and childcare givers learn how to correctly use and install products, thus empowering them with the resources and knowledge to create a safer living environment for their children. Our most recent undertaking, and the Foundation’s strategic initiative for 2019-20, was launched in March 2019. The Hannah’s Safety for All program was created out of a need we recognized shortly after the Hannah Geneser Learning Center & Safety Store opened. Even though the safety equipment at the store is offered at a greatly reduced price compared to retail, some parents still do not have the financial means to purchase it. The Hannah’s Safety for All program bridges that gap by underwriting the cost of safety items, providing them free of charge to parents. We work with social workers at the hospital and with the maternity and NICU staff to identify families in need. Since inception, the Hannah’s Safety for All program has distributed more than $12,000 in safety items free of charge to parents, including Pack ‘n Play Cribettes (promoting safe sleep for infants), car seats, window safety devices, bike helmets and more. We were honored to travel to Washington, D.C. this summer, where the Hannah Geneser Foundation received an international award at PrevCon – the 2019 Childhood Injury Prevention Conference – for establishing the Hannah Geneser Learning Center & Safety Store at Blank Children's Hospital. PrevCon is sponsored by Safe Kids Worldwide, a nonprofit organization with a network of 400 chapters in the United States and affiliations in 30 countries. We are both humbled and grateful to receive this award that acknowledges our mission to help make the world a safer place for children. We ask for your support today to further our childhood safety education and outreach – including the Hannah Geneser Learning Center & Safety Store and the Hannah’s Safety for All program – as well as organ donation awareness. Our cause is worthy, and we are determined that Hannah's story will continue to make a difference in the safety and well-being of children. If we help save just one child’s life, then our mission is accomplished.