On September 23, 2011, the Valley of Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, donated $1,500 to fund a Kansas University Medical Center RiteCare diagnostic outreach clinic for Ft. Leavenworth children and will donate another $1500 to fund a second clinic later in the school year.

RiteCare clinics provide diagnostic evaluation and treatment of speech and language disorders, as well as autism and learning disabilities. Each facility is staffed by speech-language pathologists or other trained personnel. They handle two groups of children—from birth to three years and three years and older—and a diagnosis is provided the same day!

The rapid diagnosis allows children to get into therapy programs quickly, and this is particularly important to transient military families such as Command and General Staff student families who are at Fort Leavenworth for only ten months. Autism therapy should begin at the earliest possible age, but it can take from four to nine months to get children into the regular diagnostic clinics. Thus the Ft. Leavenworth Scottish Rite is providing particularly critical support to military families. 

­—Submitted by Stephen Kempf, 32°