Page 12 - To Dragma November 1924

TO PRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI

A BED FOR CRIPPLED CHILDREN

T H E FIRST unit of Alpha Omicron Pi's national work for crip-
pled children has been established in Seattle by the naming
of a bed at the Children's Orthopedic Hospital, through the co-
operation of the National W o r k Committee and the Seattle
Alumnae chapter. The first $250 which will maintain the bed
until next October has been supplied by the National W o r k
Fund, while the Seattle Alumnae have already started raising
the second $250 for next year, and plan to continue the bed
annually, hereafter.

The Children's Orthopedic Hospital may be called Seattle's
favorite charity, for many bend their efforts toward the main-
tenance of the hospital, but with all the work that is done, more
funds are always needed to help make little limbs straight and
strong and to send out into the world, healthy, normal children,
instead of men and women handicapped f o r life by some ailment
or accident. The Orthopedic Hospital is a fine, large, modern
establishment, and while there are some paying patients, the
greater part of its work is the care of children whose parents
cannot afford to pay f o r the long, weary period of hospitaliza-
tion and the ex]>ert surgical service which the hospital offers.
The establishment of a bed by Alpha Omicron Pi at the hospital
means that f o r each year that it is maintained, one or a num-
ber of children will rest in that bed and be given free care.

To the warm-hearted, the Orthopedic Hospital is a place of
infinite pathos and also of great wonder. The sight of the chil-
dren who are being relieved of painful and serious deformities
wakens the greatest enthusiasm f o r modern medical and surgi-
cal skill, while the glimpse of tiny arms in braces and splints,
little legs being straightened by slow and tedious work, little
bodies in casts or strapped to boards that strength and ercctness
may come in time, causes the deepest pity that these youngsters
must lie in hospitals often for many weary months before their
troubles can be wholly or partly corrected.

Alpha Omicron Pi may indeed be proud that one of its first
donations to the work f o r handicapped children will help a num-
ber of Northwest children to a happier life. I t is the ambition of
Seattle Alumnae chapter to keep the bed named permanently and
plans are being carried out to raise the needed funds f o r the