Easterseals Mission
To change the way the world defines and views disabilities by making positive, profound differences in people’s lives every day. For nearly 100 years, Easterseals has been the indispensable resource for people and families challenged by disability. Now, as America faces a broad range of new issues, we make a major, positive, life—changing difference in the lives of people and families challenged by today’s disabilities. The work we do every day is redefining disability for the 21st century.
The Story of Easterseals
What is Easterseals?
For nearly 100 years, Easterseals has been the indispensable resource for people and families living with disabilities. Throughout all life’s moments – from the extraordinary to the ordinary and everything in between – Easterseals is here to help people and families realize and reach for their full potential.
Across the nation, we remove physical, cultural, attitudinal and legal obstacles so people with disabilities have every opportunity to live meaningful and productive lives, on their own terms. We exist to provide the best services and opportunities for people with disabilities in communities nationwide.
Easterseals serves people and families who face a wide range of disabilities, including physical emotional, intellectual, social and educational.
Tragedy Leads to Inspiration
In 1907, Ohio-businessman Edgar Allen lost his son in a streetcar accident. The lack of adequate medical services available to save his son prompted Allen to sell his business and begin a fund-raising campaign to build a hospital in his hometown of Elyria, Ohio. Through this new hospital, Allen was surprised to learn that children with disabilities were often hidden from public view. Inspired to make a difference, in 1919 Allen founded the National Society for Crippled Children, the first organization of its kind.
The Birth of the Seal
In the spring of 1934, the organization launched its first Easter “seals” campaign to raise money for its services. To show their support, donors placed the seals on envelopes and letters. Cleveland Plain Dealer cartoonist J.H. Donahey designed the first seal. Donahey based the design on a concept of simplicity because those served by the charity asked “simply for the right to live a normal life.” The lily – a symbol of spring – was officially incorporated as the National Society for Crippled Children’s logo in 1952 for its association with new life and new beginnings.