Edited 3/19.  At this time, we’re closing application for the iPad giveaway.  We’ve recieved well over 250 applications.  If we need any more information, we’ll be in touch!

Edited 3/2.  I can’t change the title of the post, because if I do, some incoming links will break.  We hit a fundraising threshold, so this has been increased to 20 iPads for special needs!

Edited 3/4.  There’s more information and some answers to some questions here and here.

Special needs kids are expensive.  Their feeding can be expensive, their locomotion, their bathing, and even sometimes their eating.  Entire industries are built on the demands of special needs, and being vertical markets, they charge accordingly, assuming either private insurance or governmental assistance will help bridge the gaps in what the full retail of the item is versus what’s affordable or even payable by parents that need the products in question.

Sometimes, something comes around that can change the game for some of these kids.  Maybe it’s affordable, maybe it’s not, but at least initially, there’s no help or assistance to make it affordable to an already stressed to breaking budget.  I can only assume it’s not malice that prevents initial aid.  The timeliness and speed of intervention is more due to the cogs of an ancient apathetic machine grinding to life to accommodate the change.  Maybe there will ultimately be help, maybe not, it depends on if the machine is being fickle or even wants to start up today.

We here at Marissa’s Bunny want to help.  My bosses do too.  Our  foundation hasn’t spun up completely owing to some professional and personal factors, not the least of which is Marissa’s surgery, but there’s no reason we can’t get started.

We’ve got five 32 gigabyte first (current as of this writing) generation wifi only iPads to give away.  This giveaway is for the special needs families only, please.  Age of the “patient” doesn’t matter so much, but it is a factor.  I don’t care what disease you suffer from.  I’ve asked people who link to this giveaway link to the homepage, but that hasn’t always been the case.  Please go to the homepage before submission of your entry and familiarize yourself with who we are and some of our own travails in the special needs world.  Either email us what you need an iPad for and why, giving as much or as little detail as you need or want, or leave it in a comment here. 

If you leave a comment here, please don’t leave your email or other contact information here, please email it to us.  In your contact information you provide us, please leave us a telephone number, and a good time to call you if we have any more questions.

If you’re applying for an iPad here, please spread the word to your fellow special needs families.  I’m not going to make it a formal requirement, but you know full well that no matter how many therapies, how much help we get, we can always use more.

Here’s how this is going to work:  My Wife and I, along with a few other people will look at all the stories and applications.  This is a 100% merit based award, and we and my bosses are the final authority on who gets what.  We may call some of you, we may not, but not getting a call doesn’t mean you’re disqualified or won’t get an iPad.  The first tier of reviews will pick forty likely candidates.  We will then pass those forty to my bosses, and they will decide who will receive the twenty initial iPads.

As always, we aren’t harvesting information, nor will we sell your information to anybody.  Based on previous contest entries, we may email you if you’ve said you have a specific health-related need for an iPad, but that’s about all we’d use your information for. 

We don’t have a specific end date on this, but I’d like to be able to pass the forty candidates to my bosses just before Marissa has her surgery.  If I had my way, we’d get a never ending stream of iPads, and would be able to give them out in perpetuity.  This is a good start.

Once more for good measure.  Click here to email us as many or as few details as you want.  We’ll do what we can for as many people as we can.

Edited 3/2 - hit the fundraising goal, so this is 20 iPads!