Leslie Morissette from Grahamtastic Connection

Leslie Morissette from Grahamtastic Connection (named after her son Graham who passed away from Leukemia) spoke to us about this amazing program.  Grahamtastic provides seriously ill children with free technology bringing them to places they want to be, such as school, other patients, etc.  Leslie brought a Vgo Robot which allows students to log into the robot while receiving treatments and attend school remotely.  The robots are built in Concord, NH and cost $6,000 and $1,200 a year for access to the cloud.  Prime Toyota received a plug for donating one of the three robots which are lent to students for a period of 4-5 months depending on their needs.  This is a great program because it saves the schools thousands in tutoring but also allows the child being treated to remain in their social network while learning. They are currently the only non-profit in the country lending robots.

 

In addition, they collect laptops, iPads and tablets to remote connect for kids in treatment.  Ocean Communities Federal Credit Union received a plug for their current campaign to collect used laptops for this program.  Children from Westbrook and Sanford High School’s Tech programs take the devices and clean them of any information and prepare them for donation to the children in need.  To date, they have helped 1,000 kids and offer the service free to users.  They also train their volunteers to work with the kids and have a 14 person volunteer Board.