ABOUT DREAM CONNECTION
Dream Connection, a non-profit organization, is dedicated to granting wishes of children ages 3-18 in the Knoxville area who face life threatening or chronically debilitating illnesses. Typically, these families will come for treatment / doctor visits at East Tennessee Children’s Hospital, which is right next to our campus. They send children on their dream trips, in an effort to bring back the innocence that disease and illness take from them.
Dream Connection is run by volunteers, and all donations go directly to the support of these families. Chi Omega is incredibly lucky to partner with such a giving organization. We are able to be hands-on with the children whose dreams we are sponsoring, which is a lot of our members favorite part.
Over the past few years, as a chapter, we have sent children to Disney, Italy, skiing in Canada, and even to meet JoJo Siwa!
Meet Our Dream Kids!
Nolan
Our Dream Child Nolan Fagan is 4 years old and has Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL). He finished chemo-therapy in January and was able to go on his dream to meet Mickey Mouse. Nolan loves dinosaurs, Chickfila, Moe’s, and playing with his brothers. Chi Omega is so excited to support the Dream Connection to grant big dreams for brave kids just like Nolan!
Sariyah
Hattie
Our dream child that we have been blessed to work with in the past has been Hattie, who is currently three years old and has suffered from AML Leukemia. Her dream was to have her own tree house to play in and invite friends over to, and throughout this past semester we were able to fundraise enough money to bring this dream to life! This dream was super fun to complete because our members were able to be really hands on throughout the whole process! We went shopping for decorations with Hattie and her family and were able to help decorate the finished treehouse! We also helped by painting the inside of the house Hattie’s favorite color, pink! When it was completely finished, we had a final reveal celebration where Hattie invited all of her friends over to hang out and play in her new tree house!
Our Events
Dunks for Dreams
Dunks for Dreams is our annual event that we put on during our Dream Week. Dream Week is our biggest fundraising week of the year! Dunks for Dreams is a 3v3 basketball tournament that all UT students are invited to participate in, with both guys and girls tournaments! We had a great turnout this past year with 12 guys teams and 3 girls teams! It is such a fun way to get our members and UT students involved with Dream Connection!
Philanthropy Dinners
At least once a semester, we host a philanthropy dinner to raise money for our kid’s dreams. Our members invite their friends and family to come to our house to enjoy a delicious meal by Chef Amber for an amazing cause. This past semester, we had an incredible turnout at our “Drive Through For Dreams” burger night! This is also a great opportunity for our dream kids to hang out at our house, eat a meal together, and just have fun! We invite you to attend our next philanthropy dinner to see for yourself what an amazing experience this is for our dream kids.
