Nurse Aims to Use Crowd Funding For Families Dealing With Chronic Illness

Stacey Ledbetter, a nurse at Mercy Hospital in Rogers, plans to utilize crowd funding to raise money for families who have children with chronic illnesses with the Nov. 17 launch of her website:  childlove.co. 

Crowd funding, or crowd-sourced fundraising, is a tool for startups, researchers, artists, inventors, politicians and other individuals to earn money by asking for donations online.

The idea for Child Love stems from Ledbetter’s experience watching her only sister and brother-in-law struggle with caring for a daughter who was born with cystic fibrosis and who died at age 12 while waiting for a lung transplant.

In addition to inspiring childlove.co, her niece’s illness incited the desire in Ledbetter to become a nurse, where she has seen families who struggle financially while taking care of sick children.

Most of the time, one parent must quit work, she said. “Caring for a chronically ill child is a full-time job. In fact, it’s 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

For years, she had the issue “on her mind and in her heart,” but no plan of action, she said.

But, as crowd funding websites like Indiegogo and Kickstarter gained popularity, she knew this was an avenue she could use for her cause.

The website will feature photos of the children and give each family a platform to tell its story. Each must set a fundraising goal and tell what the family intends to do with any money that is raised.