Top Quality of Life Award Presented to Carldon E. Lahey Jr., CLU, ChFC

A diagnosis of a child’s serious illness is every parent’s worst nightmare. For many parents, this nightmare gets scarier when the thought of losing your home and job due to a child’s hospital stay becomes a looming possibility.

Carldon E. Lahey Jr. CLU, ChFC, a 16-year MDRT member from Jacksonville, Florida, founded Christ’s Starfish Foundation (CSF) to provide a safety net for children and families whose lives are turned upside down due to a child’s serious illness. During the 2010 MDRT Annual Meeting, Lahey was honored as the top Quality of Life Grant winner in honor of his tireless efforts to help children and families in need.

The MDRT Foundation presented a $25,000 Quality of Life Grant to CSF to provide assistance to families with children in local hospitals who are dealing with a myriad of financial difficulties due to their child’s illness. This grant will provide the financial resources to pay for mortgage and bill payments, groceries, travel and fuel costs for parents of children admitted to Shands Children’s Hospital in Gainesville, Florida.

“Lahey displays an overwhelming personal commitment to help children and their parents who are often in crisis and feel as though they have nobody to turn to for help,” said Jim Hutcheson, a social worker at Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida.

Lahey founded CSF in 2007 when his daughter, who is a pediatric nurse, made him aware of the shortage of available resources for families of children with non-cancer illnesses. “Rightly so, because of the frequency of pediatric cancer there are many organizations that provide financial resources for families with children who have cancer,” Lahey explained. “I was shocked to learn that there are not many charitable organizations that serve children with illnesses other than cancer.”

Each year, approximately 25 percent of children in the United States will sustain a serious illness or injury that requires a stay in the hospital, according to the National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions. Because of Lahey’s leadership and volunteer efforts, many families can now focus on the important work of helping their child recover without the added stress of financial worries.