silverskatefestival.org - Children's Ability Fund

CHILDREN'S ABILITY FUND

Children’s Ability Fund and the Silver Skate Festival

Our mission is to fund equipment to enhance the independence of people with disabilities and our focus is to celebrate the unique abilities of each and every person. Money raised at events like the Silver Skate Festival will be used to fund even more specialized equipment.

The majority of requests we receive are related to mobility. It may be something as simple as a walker or a manual wheelchair or as complex as a specialized wheelchair or a very expensive van modification. All of this equipment provides a means to a little more independence... independence to be more active in your community, at home, at school, at work and at play.

Meet Miranda
Miranda is a 13 year old girl who has a diagnosis of spastic quadriparetic cerebral palsy. She uses a manual wheelchair full time and requires assistance in her daily activites.

Miranda is a beautiful child and has a smile as big and bright as the sun” says Mom. Her smile is ever bigger now that she has a fully modified van. We just got our new van and it needs an oil change already because Miranda loves to go out on little adventures. It has really improved our way of life dramatically and helped us out so much. ” We can’t thank you enough for your support”.

Through generous donations - the Children’s Ability Fund was able to contribute $10,000 for a new ramp (total cost of the accessible portion is $33,870) to help make the new van totally accessible for Miranda.

We also have special programs like the Sledges in Schools Program in partnership with the Paralympic Sports Association (PSA)

This project is a reverse inclusion initiative by the Paralympic Sports Association and the Children's Ability Fund. The Fund provides the sledges for the program and the Association administers the program. Talk about TEAM WORK.

The Program provides two purposes:

To provide equipment (Sledges) for children or youth with a physical disability enabling students with equipment to participate in skating/ hockey activities with their class in school AND
To provide the opportunity for children and youth to try Sledge Hockey by participating in a Sledge Hockey Demo.

Check out the Paralympics Sports Association sledges on the ice at the Festival – PSA Enriching lives through recreation.

The Children’s Ability Fund (active in northern Alberta since 1947) has been a participant in the Silver Skate Festival since 1998 and is proud to be recognized as the Festivals charity of choice.