Local nonprofit Reagan’s Journey gives much-needed medical equipment to families for free

Having a child with disabilities can be incredibly challenging. But a local nonprofit called “Reagan’s Journey” is helping make those challenges easier for local families.

Recently, Emily McDonough brought her daughter, Makenna, to Reagan’s Journey in Freeport to pick up special pediatric medical equipment at no cost. After nine surgeries, including open-heart surgery, Makenna is going home with a feeding tube and is learning to walk again.

During their visit, Reagan’s Journey founder Kim Neal was glad to show Emily how the bath chair works. Makenna is also getting a walker since she just got out of UPMC Children’s Hospital after four months of treatment for a tumor on her heart that burst.

McDonough is grateful to have found Reagan’s Journey, which takes donations of pediatric medical equipment and supplies, then gives them to families that need it.

“It’s absolutely frustrating because you see that your child is struggling and needs certain things to help her be mobile and keep up with her brothers and sisters,” McDonough says, “but you can’t get it, because what if she needs something different in six months?”

Often, health insurance will only cover one piece of equipment every five years. But children grow quickly, so kids outgrow their medical equipment or their needs change long before five years passes.

Other families need duplicates of certain items, if the parents don’t live together or the child regularly goes to a family member’s house for care. And sometimes, families need equipment or supplies just to go home from the hospital, but getting that custom medical equipment can take as long as six months.

“Children’s hospitals, their social workers and their therapists reach out to us every day, saying, ‘Look, I have a patient who is getting discharged and needs a piece of equipment,’ which is what’s happening today,” Neal says.

Neal named Reagan’s Journey for her own daughter, who has a brain injury. She had outgrown her equipment, and the Neals met other families who could use that equipment.

“The first couple of things that we sent out were Reagan’s from our house,” Neal says. “So there was, I think, a bike and a wheelchair and a stander. Of course, they’re all hot pink. She loves pink. But all these families, we realized, have the same things in their house. They’ve got a walker and a wheelchair that’s in their shed or their basement that’s not being used, but no one would take it back.”

On average, people will drive 1 1/2 to two hours to get or give equipment at the closet at Reagan’s Journey in Freeport. One man drove six hours all the way from Canada, where his insurance wouldn’t cover the feeding supplies his child needed to live.

Reagan’s Journey helps about 15 families per week with a closet containing $500,000 worth of pediatric equipment and supplies to help kids sit, stand, walk, bathe and eat. Many families return the equipment when they no longer need it, so that it can help another family.

But this is more than just a transaction. Neal and her director of development, Tara Garis, both care about the families they help. Tara’s son, Ethan, also has disabilities. So both parents know firsthand what these families are going through.

“When you come here, you get to talk in depth with Kim and I, and we get to share the heartache and the joys,” Garis says. “Sometimes kids come here and they’ll take their first steps with a piece of equipment that’s here.”

Danielle Dunegan is getting a special stroller for her toddler son, Teig, who has a rare brain disorder, so he can ride the bus to preschool this fall. If it weren’t for Reagan’s Journey, it would have cost their family about  $3,000.

“We didn’t know what we would do,” Dunegan said. “We were kind of stuck in a bind. They were asking for a good bit of money. In today’s world, it’s hard to come by. So this is quite a blessing.”

Neal and Garis are glad to be turning their own hurdles into opportunities to help families on a similar journey.

For some families, Garis says, “it’s like Christmas Day. They can just come and shop and take things home for free. I feel like it helps us give purpose to what we’ve walked through.”

Kim thinks back to when her daughter was first diagnosed and says, “I remember just crying out and just being upset. I didn’t know what was happening. Why is this happening to her, to my child? Why is this happening to me? And so now, knowing that I could turn something so dark, and that God would allow me to use that to bless other people, it’s been pretty rewarding.”

There’s now a second Reagan’s Journey closet location in Lancaster, and they’re in the process of opening more – in Erie, as well as in West Virginia and Ohio. Reagan’s Journey also hosts events for families to get together in person. And families can share resources and experiences with each other on their private Facebook page.

Click right here for more on Reagan’s Journey.