About Us
ABOUT US
The Limitless Fund is a registered 501(c)3 with the mission of providing financial assistance to clients of Meraki Health and helping promote the Limitless Program hosted by Meraki Health through providing assistance with supplies, programming assistance, and capital investments into the program to help promote the vision and values of the Limitless Program.
The Limitless Fund is served by five board members:
- President Amanda Hartigan (Newton, IL) - Schneider Trucking
- Vice President Chad Ebbert (Champaign, IL) - Precision Painting
- Secretary Mark Keller (Newton, IL) - Agracel
- Board Member Cole Emmerich (St. Louis, MO)
- Executive Director/Treasurer - Tony O'Brien (Olney, IL) - Meraki Health
* Executive Director is a non-voting ex-officio position served by Meraki Health's Dir. Business Operation
HISTORY
In the summer on 2018, Meraki Health, started what is today known as the Limitless Program through a summer camp program as a way to fill a need for children to continue their school based IDPs or home based plan of care during the summer months. Following that summer a handful of the families wanted to the program as a permanent fixture for their children to have something for them to attend year around. At that time we looked for a location to house the program and started setting up the structure, which was a 501(c)3 for the Limitless Institute of Functional Education (LIFE). In its infancy the idea was to have a program that would be supported through donations, a coffee shop and store that could also be used as functional learning for the students. As we went through the first year the demand for the program continued to grow and the program started to morph from a summer camp structure into a well rounded pediatric outpatient therapeutic center. Through 2018 and 2019 we continued to fine tune the program adding in an ABA Behavior Therapy approach for children with autism and staffing a team of therapy technicians to offer that service. At this point we had to make the decision as to whether to operate the LIFE program as non-profit business or bring it under our Meraki Health corporate structure and start a non-profit mission to support that program.
Due to the operational savings as well as forward looking issues around staffing, accounting, federal/state reporting, regulations, etc. the decision was made to bring the LIFE program under the Meraki Health umbrella, which is when we rebranded it as the Limitless Program and moved the program into its current location. The LIFE 501(c)3 officially transitioned in 2020 to the Limitless Fund which was housed through the Southeastern Illinois Community Foundation (SICF). This allowed us to use their 501(c)3 status to house our non-profit mission without having the operational responsibilities of running a 501(c)3. This was a great bridge for us, however, we were eliminated from several grant and foundational donation opportunities as many of those are ineligible for "pass-thru" entities, which is how they classified our Limitless Fund through SICF. In the latter part of 2021 we started the process of getting our own 501(c)3 so we could accomplish the goals the Limitless Fund and Limitless Program have always had without the constraints of other organizations and restrictions of a being a "pass-thru" fund. In January of 2022 we received our 501(c)3 status from the Department of Treasury and in early March we received our approval for the non-profit articles of incorporation from the State of Illinois.
If you would like more information on the Limitless Program you can access the Meraki Health website at. www.merakishine.com/limitless
The Limitless Fund is a registered 501(c)3 with the mission of providing financial assistance to clients of Meraki Health and helping promote the Limitless Program hosted by Meraki Health through providing assistance with supplies, programming assistance, and capital investments into the program to help promote the vision and values of the Limitless Program.
The Limitless Fund is served by five board members:
- President Amanda Hartigan (Newton, IL) - Schneider Trucking
- Vice President Chad Ebbert (Champaign, IL) - Precision Painting
- Secretary Mark Keller (Newton, IL) - Agracel
- Board Member Cole Emmerich (St. Louis, MO)
- Executive Director/Treasurer - Tony O'Brien (Olney, IL) - Meraki Health
* Executive Director is a non-voting ex-officio position served by Meraki Health's Dir. Business Operation
HISTORY
In the summer on 2018, Meraki Health, started what is today known as the Limitless Program through a summer camp program as a way to fill a need for children to continue their school based IDPs or home based plan of care during the summer months. Following that summer a handful of the families wanted to the program as a permanent fixture for their children to have something for them to attend year around. At that time we looked for a location to house the program and started setting up the structure, which was a 501(c)3 for the Limitless Institute of Functional Education (LIFE). In its infancy the idea was to have a program that would be supported through donations, a coffee shop and store that could also be used as functional learning for the students. As we went through the first year the demand for the program continued to grow and the program started to morph from a summer camp structure into a well rounded pediatric outpatient therapeutic center. Through 2018 and 2019 we continued to fine tune the program adding in an ABA Behavior Therapy approach for children with autism and staffing a team of therapy technicians to offer that service. At this point we had to make the decision as to whether to operate the LIFE program as non-profit business or bring it under our Meraki Health corporate structure and start a non-profit mission to support that program.
Due to the operational savings as well as forward looking issues around staffing, accounting, federal/state reporting, regulations, etc. the decision was made to bring the LIFE program under the Meraki Health umbrella, which is when we rebranded it as the Limitless Program and moved the program into its current location. The LIFE 501(c)3 officially transitioned in 2020 to the Limitless Fund which was housed through the Southeastern Illinois Community Foundation (SICF). This allowed us to use their 501(c)3 status to house our non-profit mission without having the operational responsibilities of running a 501(c)3. This was a great bridge for us, however, we were eliminated from several grant and foundational donation opportunities as many of those are ineligible for "pass-thru" entities, which is how they classified our Limitless Fund through SICF. In the latter part of 2021 we started the process of getting our own 501(c)3 so we could accomplish the goals the Limitless Fund and Limitless Program have always had without the constraints of other organizations and restrictions of a being a "pass-thru" fund. In January of 2022 we received our 501(c)3 status from the Department of Treasury and in early March we received our approval for the non-profit articles of incorporation from the State of Illinois.
If you would like more information on the Limitless Program you can access the Meraki Health website at. www.merakishine.com/limitless