March 2022 – Preemie Organization Highlight

Name of Organization: Madelyn’s Fund
Established: 2016
Outreach: Charlotte, SC
Founder: Rachel Lee
www.madelynsfund.org

FOCUS: Madelyn’s Fund supports NICU patients and their families, including those who suffer the trauma of infant loss. We provide assistance to families at Novant Health Main hospital NICU and Levine Children’s Hospital NICU and neonatal CVICU.
When families are faced with spending unexpected time in the NICU, they are forced to take unforeseen time off of work, incur travel costs, pay countless medical bills, and in the worst of cases, bear the expense for their child’s funeral. Our goal is to ease the stress they experience through financial assistance, allowing them to focus their time and energy on the well-being of their family.

BACKGROUND: On January 27, 2015, our family joyfully welcomed Madelyn Elizabeth, a long-wished-for little sister to our two boys, Ryan and Adam. Born at 37 weeks, she was immediately taken to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in order to assist with her breathing due to fluid she swallowed during delivery. To our great excitement, her health began to improve and my husband Andy and I spent the next few days bonding and connecting with our baby girl. During her sixth day in the NICU, she became extremely ill with an infection that she tried her best to fight. As eternal optimists, we remained hopeful that her health would improve. We will never forget receiving the chilling middle of the night call on February 4th that changed our lives forever. Upon our arrival at the hospital, we were faced with our worst nightmare — our little girl had passed away.

Through our faith in God, the love of family, and the support of friends, we made it through our darkest days. In the summer of 2015, Andy — in his 12th season with the NFL — was traded to the Cleveland Browns where he changed his jersey number to 8 in honor of Madelyn’s eight short days of life. Our hearts are forever sealed to hers. Our family has experienced other changes since then, but our home base remains in Charlotte, where we are committed to helping NICU families in our community.

In November of 2016, we launched Madelyn’s Fund in an effort to provide families facing NICU stays or infant loss with the financial support that they so desperately need. On December 23, 2016 we helped our first family and through December 2021 we have provided assistance to over 1,559 families, 170 of which were for funeral expenses.
We are humbled to honor our daughter’s memory through monies raised and support provided by Madelyn’s Fund.

Family Assistance: https://madelynsfund.org/madelyns-story/how-we-help/