Burns Recovered Support Group Grateful for Simmons Employee Foundation Support
Edwardsville, Ill. – The Simmons Employee Foundation raised $25,000 from the 8th Annual SEF Golf Tournament last weekend in support of the Burns Recovered Support Group. Despite temperatures reaching into triple digits, 56 teams participated in the event at Sunset Hills Country Club in Edwardsville, Ill., with two golfers hitting hole-in-ones.
“This year’s Simmons Employee Foundation Golf Tournament was a great success,” said Simmons Hanly Conroy Chairman John Simmons. “Thanks to the support of our employees, volunteers from various area businesses like Clover Leaf Bank and PohlmanUSA and generous donations from sponsors, the tournament raised $25,000 to benefit young burn survivors. Because of everyone’s generosity, Burns Recovered Support Group can continue its good work of supporting young burn survivors with their recovery through the Missouri Children’s Burn Camp.”
Linda Hansen, Executive Director of Burns Recovered Support Group, is grateful to the foundation for its mission to support smaller, area charities like Burn Camp. People often want to donate to the larger, better known charities, she said.
“As a small charity, a gift like this is just so meaningful for us,” she said. “It’s going to provide an incredible emotionally supportive environment for our campers where they will have the opportunity to make friends, fun and memories to last a lifetime.”
Hansen and her husband, Gary, a burn survivor, founded the camp in 1997. The first year, 17 campers attended. This summer she is expecting 79 campers and 47 volunteers who will work as counselors and camp staff.
“Burns discriminate,” Hansen explained. “Not by race, but through social economics. Most of these children, even under the best of circumstances, couldn’t go to camp because they couldn’t afford it.”
The camp teaches the children, many of whom have never met another burn survivor, they are not alone and improves self-esteem, she said.
“They learn there is someone beyond the scar,” she said. “Our skin is just the wrapping paper and our gift is on the inside. If I can get all my children to get that by the end of camp then my job is done.”
Founded by burn survivors and the burn care team at St. John’s Mercy Medical Center, the Burns Recovered Support Group is a St. Louis-based nonprofit organization whose mission is to assist burn survivors in their recovery, support medical facilities in the care of burns in Missouri and educate the public in burn awareness and prevention. For more information about Burns Recovered Support Group, visit www.brsg.org.
