RAINBOW ANIMAL ASSISTED THERAPY INC

The oldest and largest organization of its type in the Chicago metropolitan area, Rainbow has developed and implemented the very first animal assisted therapy program. Rainbow Animal Assisted Therapy is an Illinois volunteer based organization, which provides trained registered therapy dogs to help people, primarily children in the hospital setting, or children with special needs disabilities, to improve their health and quality of life. Rainbow programs are free of cost to all participants, and rely 100% on volunteer based assistance. Rainbow teams, consisting of more than 300 volunteer handlers and their registered therapy dogs. Rainbow programs are currently in more than 24 major Chicago-land children’s hospitals & hospital settings, providing therapy free of charge to patients. Rainbow’s Crisis Response Unit is an official partner with the American Red Cross of Greater Chicago Metropolitan Area serving seven counties with a total population of 8.3 million. Rainbow currently services the city of Chicago and the surrounding 5 county metropolitan area in over 155 different therapeutic programs, reaching more than 1000 children per month. The annual Rainbow Animal Assisted Therapy Gala is held in Chicago, IL each year. During our gala, there is a grand and silent auction for all items which generates the primary income for our annual programming. This gala generates funding for all of our annual programming, educational programming and therapy animal / volunteer training and support. This gala is attended by Rainbow Animal Assisted Therapy members, volunteers, program sponsors (such as the administration from our hospital, library and park district program sponsors), board members, and community members at large that support our organization. During our gala, there is a grand and silent auction for all items which generates the primary benefit of the event. Event sponsors will be recognized in our quarterly newsletter, in our event program and on our event display table.