Easter Seals (US)

Easter Seals (founded in 1919 as the National Society for Crippled Children) is an American nonprofit charitable organization that assists more than one million children and adults with disabilities and special needs (including autism) through a network of more than 550 service sites in the United States, Canada, Australia and Puerto Rico.

Sites provide services, therapies and treatments tailored to meet the specific needs of the particular community they serve. The organization assists children and adults with physical and mental disabilities and special needs resulting from any cause, whether diagnosed at birth or incurred through disease, accidental injury or the aging process.

Easter Seals meets the standards of the National Health Council and the Better Business Bureau/Wise Giving Alliance.

Easter Seals offers a variety of services designed to meet individual needs. Therapists, teachers and other health professionals help people overcome obstacles to independence and reach their individual goals. Families are treated as active members of any therapy program. Services include, but are not limited to:

Easter Seals is a grassroots, community-based organization. Approximately 90 percent of Easter Seals' revenue supports services in the areas where funds are raised. For more than 25 consecutive years, Easter Seals has ranked first among National Health Council members for the percentage (94 percent) of program dollars spent on direct client services. Easter Seals receives funding from a variety of sources, including private insurers, government agencies, public contributions and fee-for-service. Public contributions help cover the difference between actual program costs and what clients can afford. Easter Seals primary services benefit over 1.3 million individuals each year through more than 550 centers in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico and Australia.

The name "Easter Seals" derives from an earlier fundraising program: beginning in 1934, colorful adhesive seals, the size of postage stamps, were sold around Easter; purchasers stuck these on mailed envelopes to demonstrate their support for the organization. These seals became so well known that the organization changed its name to Easter Seals in 1967.

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