About us
For more than 30 years, Sunlight Children's Aid volunteers have come from a wide variety of ages, backgrounds, and experience. We all share in the goal of wanting to help provide educational opportunities to Lithuanian children with disabilities or living in underserved communities. Students in rural towns of Lithuania are often provided minimum educational standards due to regional budgetary restrictions. “Saulute” elevates the educational experience of students by providing most current educational materials for those with special needs, or when donor directed, creating digital fabrication (pre-engineering), chemistry or physics laboratories. In this manner, allowing children in rural towns to acquire the necessary skills with which they can then seek higher education or more technical job opportunities. Scroll down for more details.
Mission
Sunlight Children's Aid is a U.S.A. based non-profit organization dedicated to the support of children in Lithuania who are struggling with disabilities or living in underserved communities.
History
Sunlight Children's Aid (originally named Sunlight Orphan Aid for Lithuania, or "Saulute") was founded in 1993 by Chicagoan Indre Tijunelis (1934-2022) in response to the orphanage system abandoned by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Our goal was to help these orphaned children who were lacking clothing, funding and support. With time, our focus widened to to help any child in need. Through the assistance of Lithuanian Children's Fund (Lietuvos vaikų fondas) and regional social workers, we began our Sponsor a Child Program allowing benefactors to direct their donations to specific children.
Maintaining the goal of providing financial support, some of our volunteers have travelled to Lithuania paying their own expenses. We meet with contacts within Lithuania, and each trip provides more insight to the needs at hand. Donations have been collected to provide motorized wheelchairs, send specific medical equipment, provide a rural town with a mini school bus so that children could be safely transported to school, provided computers for a rural classroom, and sent over 20,000 boxes of gently used clothing. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Sunlight Orphan Aid purchased 71 computers within the first 2 months of the pandemic for financially challenged students in Lithuania.
Sunlight Children's Aid works with regional representatives in Lithuania and Parliamentarians (Siemo nariai) to identify candidates for FabLab classrooms and special needs classrooms, as well as emergent needs in rural and underserved areas of Lithuania.
Sunlight Children's Aid is a 501(c)(3) organization EIN: 20-8084646
14488 Hawthorn Dr.
Lemont, IL 60439-9126 U.S.A.
630-852-3204
SunlightChildrensAid@gmail.com