About Us

We are volunteer-driven and 100% of our proceeds support children and families. Families continually express their gratitude for the overwhelming support and generosity invested in improving the lives of their children with chronic illness, especially while we all battled a huge pandemic. We thank you! Despite the absence of live events for two years, donors continued fueling our 3 goals:

1. We provided social-emotional resources on coping with medical trauma through our:

• Resource rich website (free printable stories, visual supports, and tools)–www.purpleplayasfoundation.org • Purple Playas Coping Kits (children’s book, medical play kit, hands on coping tools) • Coping Book Bundles (pilot study teaching self regulation of emotions) • Tucker Turtle Puppets (our beloved story book character)

2. We provided funding and resources, resulting in SMILES:

• Gas/food gift cards to ease the burden of medical expenses • Snacks/coffee for families during infusions • Funding camp for children with chronic illness • Holiday SMILES Gift Giving (toys, gas cards, and food cards to 4 children’s hospitals) • Funding for families to attend the JA Conference • Funding research through the Arthritis Foundation (AF), AiA, and the SJIA Foundation • Sock-It to Chronic Illness Campaign (get a pair/give a pair of “hope heels” socks) • Bravery prizes for clinic/infusion treasure chests

3. We provided three years of funding for a pediatric rheumatology fellowship in partnership with the AF and UF Health Shands Hospital, due to critical shortage in this specialty.