Who We Are:
Feel Better Foundation is a 501c3 non-profit that supports families with children with life-threatening medical conditions, by empowering caregivers with the emotional support, education, and community they need to heal and persevere.
With a team and board composed entirely of medical moms, we truly understand the support families need to create light in the darkness and strength out of struggle.
What We Do:
Feel Better Legacies are lasting ways to honor or memorialize your child and their battle, while bettering the world around you. Legacies are planned acts of kindness, support, or community outreach. Some families choose to dedicate hospital wagons in their child's honor, others wish to plant a community garden. Some families even decide to host events to gain research money for their child's condition.
Families often find the legacy granting process therapuetic and healing- creating light from a dark time.
Feel Better Mom is an online and in-person community for mothers (and female legal guardians) with children with special health care needs. The group offers opportunities to engage, advocate, learn, and support. Mothers of children can be in any phase: (treatment, maintenance, survivorship, or bereavement).
We strive to:
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Empower mothers to advocate and share their lived experiences for the better of the community.
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Push for equitable, patient-centered care for themselves and their children.
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Educate moms on their child's condition and rights so that we can bridge the gap of health care literacy and become a respected, valued member of their child's care team.
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Bring awareness to underserved and underrepresented physical and mental health conditions and secondary conditions such as, medically induced PTSD and anxiety.
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Engage with other women experiencing their journey so they know they are never alone.
For engagement and bonding, special events for medical moms are offered at no cost so that they can heal and grow, together. Check out our therapeutic, Feel Better Mom Retreats!
Feel Better Dad is an online and in-person community for fathers with children with special healthcare needs. The group offers opportunities to engage, advocate, learn, and support. Special events for dads include: tickets to sporting events, father/child events, dad dinners, and more.
Dads want to be able to fix every problem for their family. Often, when a child is diagnosed, dads feel helpless. They struggle with not being able to protect their family. We support dads by giving them the tools to heal and learn, in a relaxed setting.
Feel Better Sibs is a group that fosters and offers opportunities for siblings of warriors to feel seen, included, and valued. Special events for sibs are coming soon!
Every child needs to know that they are special and a part of their family's journey. We celebrate them and honor the trauma they have also endured.
Why We Do It:
In Loving Memory of Jillian Ripley
Our Honorary CEO: Scarlett
Shortly after her second birthday, sweet Scarlett was diagnosed with a rare, one-of-a-kind, cancerous tumor growing in her colon. For months, Scarlett's family felt lost, angry, and helpless. Yet, they were always in awe of Scarlett's concern for the other children in the hospital. As Scarlett's family began to provide support to those around them, they realized how therapeutic giving back was. They took comfort in knowing that something good was coming from their pain. Scarlett's fight wasn't in vain.
Feel Better Foundation was born to gift other families that opportunity- to create their own light in the darkness. Over time, Feel Better Mom, Dad, and Sibs were added. After all, children are only as healthy and happy as their support system. When a child is diagnosed, the entire family is impacted.
Feel Better is there to make the ENTIRE family feel better.
Leadership Board:
(Proud to be entirely chaired by Medical Mamas)
President & Founder: Melissa Jackson
Kelly Taylor
Katherine Fulton
Dyan Fox
Auxiliary Board:
Kelli Hartung
Jennifer Predovich
John Hartung
Julia Ripley