Easterseals Bluegrass

Ohio-businessman and Rotarian Edgar Allen lost his son in a streetcar accident because of the lack of adequate medical services available to save his son.

Inspired to make a difference, in 1919 Allen founded the National Society for Crippled Children, the first organization of its kind. He recruited his Rotary Club to help create a network of programs that would become Easterseals.

The Cardinal Hill Convalescent Home opened in 1950, when the polio epidemic was widespread. Seeing the need to serve children impacted by various medical conditions, a preschool facility to serve these children was implemented with the vision and help of Mrs. Virginia Creech.

The overwhelming public support for the Easter “seals” campaign triggered a nationwide expansion of the organization and a swell of grassroots efforts on behalf of people with disabilities. By 1967, the Easter “seal” was so well recognized, the organization formally adopted the name “Easter Seals.”

In 2020, the Kentucky Easter Seal Society (KESS) purchased a 170,000 square foot building in Lexington, Kentucky, with the goal of converting the space to suit the needs of the Easterseals programs. Renovation began in 2021 and was completed in the spring of 2023.  This new space helped facilitate a new partnership between Easterseals and UK HealthCare’s Kentucky Children’s Hospital (KCH) , which expanded services for children who require complex medical and developmental care.  As a part of this partnership, Easterseals agreed to lease space at their Richmond Road facility to UK Healthcare’s Kentucky Children’s Hospital’s Complex Care Clinic, Developmental Pediatrics Clinic, and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Graduate clinic. In 2022, KESS adopted a new name for its operations and became Easterseals Bluegrass.

In 2022, KESS adopted a new name for its operations and became Easterseals Bluegrass.