Once again this year, we would like to do something good with our Christmas budget and support two social institutions in our region. The St. Franziskus Foundation - a competence center for people with deaf-blindness and hearing impairment - received a donation of € 5,000. The Katharinenhöhe Rehabilitation Clinic - a special clinic for children with cancer and heart disease - received a donation of € 2,500.
One recipient is the St. Franziskus Foundation in the Schramberg district of Heiligenbronn. This church foundation under public law was established in 1991 by the then Bishop of the Rottenburg-Stuttgart diocese, Dr. Walter Kasper, with the aim of continuing the social services of the Franciscan convent in Heiligenbronn for people with disabilities, the disadvantaged and the elderly. The former convent has a long tradition of caring for deaf-mute (since 1860) and blind children (since 1868). Today, the areas of activity include care for the elderly, children and young people as well as care for the disabled with a focus on people with sensory and multiple disabilities. The foundation maintains the only competence center for people with deafblindness and hearing impairment in Baden-Württemberg. Today, around 2,400 full-time employees and 400 volunteers work for the St. Franziskus Foundation and support around 6,000 people in need of help at 30 locations.
The Katharinenhöhe rehabilitation clinic in Schönwald in the Black Forest receives a second donation. Katharinenhöhe, a facility run by the Baden District Workers' Welfare Association, can look back on a history of more than one hundred years and offers a wide range of treatment options for both physical and mental illnesses in order to treat them simultaneously and equally. As a leading specialist clinic for the rehabilitation of oncological, hematological and cardiological diseases in children and young people, Katharinenhöhe offers comprehensive medical, physiotherapeutic and psychological support. In 1985, it was the first facility ever to begin admitting and treating children with cancer, and soon also children with severe heart conditions, together with their families. Today, more than a quarter of seriously ill children in Germany and their families are treated and cared for as inpatients at Katharinenhöhe, which underlines the supra-regional importance of this facility.