Summer is still a busy time for the Burn Foundation, which may surprise many people. After all, summer is for swimming, the beach and baseball, not lighting fireplaces and holiday candles. However, some of the activities that make summer so much fun, are the same ones that have the potential to turn deadly. That’s why the Burn Foundation makes a concentrated effort to educate Philadelphia families, especially those with young children, about summer fire safety.

Classic summer vacation highlights, such as barbeques, campfires, fireworks, tiki torches and even mosquito-repellant citronella candles, can come to a tragic halt if the proper safety precautions are not taken. According to the U.S. Fire Administration, 6,500 grill fires are reported each year as a result of poor safety preparation and care. In addition, improper use of fireworks causes more than 6,000 fires annually and over 8,000 burn injuries annually.

“One of the goals of the Burn Foundation is to educate everyone in the community year-round to help them develop practices to prevent future fires and fire-related injury and tragedy,” said Patsy Porter, president of the Burn Foundation. “Summertime, however, is a particularly critical period because people are in ‘vacation mode’ and tend to be more carefree. We take a three-tier approach to support community-wide fire safety: awareness, attitude and action.”

Established in 1973, the Burn Foundation is a Philadelphia-based non-profit organization, serving the tri-state burn care community, as well as burn survivors and their families. Its service area includes: Bucks, Montgomery, Philadelphia, Delaware and Chester counties in Pennsylvania, Mercer, Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, Salem, Atlantic, Cumberland and Cape May counties in Southern New Jersey, and the State of Delaware.

Education & Prevention

In the past 10 years, the Burn Foundation has reached out to more than 1200 area schools providing lesson plans and support DVDs for the Stop, Drop & Roll and Cooking and Kids programs. Over 500 area Senior Citizens have received burn education through The Burn Foundation’s Senior program. More than 18,000 student nurses have been trained in burn care in order to help treat patients at area hospitals. What’s more, with funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program, the Foundation has developed a comprehensive burn, fire prevention and survivor support media library to enhance these programs.

Support for Survivors

Each year, the Burn Foundation provides up to 25 scholarships for young burn survivors to attend a week-long summer camp session at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Burn Camp. “It is wonderful for young people who have been physically and emotionally scarred to spend time in a supportive, fun environment with their peers who have been through similar experiences,” said Porter.

The Foundation initiated a new Burn Survivor Advisory Council this spring to advise the organization on how best to serve burn survivors and their family members. In addition, the Foundation is regularly called on to provide pressure garments for recovering patients whose insurance falls short or is non-existent; and to make referrals for other services.

Financial Support

During the past five years alone, the Burn Foundation has provided more than $1.8 million in financial support to four regional burn centers: Crozer-Chester Medical Center’s Nathan Speare Regional Burn Treatment Center, Lehigh Valley Hospital’s Regional Burn Center and Burn Recovery Center, St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children’s Stuart J. Hulnick Burn Center, and Temple University Hospital’s Temple Burn Center and all of which treat patients from more than 160 referring hospital emergency rooms in three states.