The picture to the right shows the namesake of the Baby Sharon Fund shortly after her birth in Ho Chi Minh City. Baby Sharon looks healthy but she was born with a coarctation of the aorta and needed immediate surgery. The surgery was set up for Children’s Hospital but the government of Vietnam would not let her leave the country. They required the use of their plane, doctors and a hospital in Singapore with a mandatory cash payment of $36,000 before anything could happen. Not having access to $36,000 cost Baby Sharon her life but lead to the passage of the Baby Sharon Act to help children struck by a medical catastrophe. Please consider a yearly contribution so we have a strong safety net in place for our children.

The Baby Sharon Fund awarded the following grants at our July, 2006 meeting:

• $500 to help a family with trip expenses to Texas to get treatment unavailable in Arkansas.
• $1,200 to pay the electrical bills in arrears so a child could use a ventilator in her home.
• $3,000 to buy a good used van for a family so they could safely travel back and forth to Children's Hospital from Fayetteville. The only car the family could afford had 350,000 miles on it and the lights did not work. They will be making weekly trips to Children's Hospital for several months.

Baby Sharon Committee adds special room to home so child could leave hospital.

The Baby Sharon Fund awarded the following grants at our September, 2006 meeting:

• $8,300 to add a room on to the home of a very sick little girl who must have a special bed and equipment in a hospital-like room before she will be allowed to leave the hospital.
• $1,800 to help meet expenses of a family of a kidney patient who had to go to Dallas to get treatment.

The Baby Sharon Fund awarded the following grants at our November, 2006 meeting:

• $1500 to Arkansas Children's Hospital to help with utilities, automobile repair, and insurance for a recent heart transplant patient's family.
• St. Vincent's was given $500 for telephone service and a gas card to help in the transition of an NICU patient returning home to Hope, AR on a monitor.

The Baby Sharon Fund awarded the following grant at our January, 2007 meeting:

• $1100 to Arkansas Children's Hospital to help with utilities and rent of the family of a very sick 3-year-old so they could move close enough to ACH to get needed therapy for the child's developmental delay, facial and head anomalies, hearing loss, dysphagia, congential hydrocephalus, retrolental fibroplasia, and seizure disorder.

The Baby Sharon Fund awarded the following grants at our July, 2007 meeting:

• $3500 to a family whose child has Cutis Laxa for rent, car repair, and utilities.
• $2200 to a family whose child has Encephalopathy, Adrenal Insufficiency for rent, car repair, and utilities.

The Baby Sharon Fund awarded the following grants at our March 2008 meeting:

• $2,000 for Presley to help his mom with rent, electric bill and respite duty nursing.
• $2,700 for Tori to buy a wheelchair lift.