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Millennium Award | |||||||
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This award is presented to honor individuals who have contributed to the success of PA SIDS over the past 20 years.
Dan and Eileen Carlins Dan
and Eileen Carlins personify everything that we have been working to
accomplish since 1981. Since the death of their daughter, Rachel Ann,
on October 6, 1980, they have dedicated their lives to keeping her
memory alive through their unwavering devotion to fulfilling the mission
of the PA SIDS Alliance. Dan, who held the position of Treasurer of our organization, waded through the intense paperwork involved in our incorporation and the filing of our non-profit status in 1992. This at a time when his growing family (Matthew, Sarah and Emily) was naturally making demands on his time. He explained that the time he spent working on SIDS matters was time he normally would have spent with Rachel. Dan will always be credited with initiating one of our most successful fundraisers – the Entertainment Book Sale. When he suggested to the board that we should sell the books, he was not taken seriously. After all, how successful could we be, considering that we could only make $5 per book and that first year only 13 books were sold. Being undaunted, Dan persevered. Today that fundraiser has turned into one of our most successful with the sale of over 4,000 books a year at a profit of $7 per book. As Dan was spending his time with Board matters, Eileen devoted her time to service to families. Eileen progressed from a peer contact, to peer contact coordinator to her present position of Director, Support and Education. She has attended almost every parent support meeting for over 10 years and is the first voice from our organization that our new parents hear. Quite an accomplishment considering that during that time she was obtaining her Bachelors and Masters Degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work, graduating first in her class. Eileen’s accomplishments did not stop there. She is also responsible for hundreds of in-service education programs to EMTs, nursing students, The Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science, teen parenting classes at local high schools and residents at Children’s Hospital Emergency Room to name a few. On August 12th Rachel would have been 21 years old. Although she only lived 2 short months, she changed the lives, forever, of the people who loved her and also the hundreds of SIDS parents who would not had the benefit of Eileen’s love, compassion and understanding to see them through the darkest days of their lives.
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©2006 S.I.D.S. of Pennsylvania Suite 250 Riverfront Place - 810 River Avenue - Pittsburgh, PA 15212 412-322-5680 or 800-PA1-SIDS (800-721-7437)
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