Resources from this fund are designated to assist children with special needs to have access to individualized solutions through The STAR Center without regard to their ability to pay.

Some of the life-changing services that will be provided through this fund are screenings in the areas of assistive technology, music therapy, art therapy, vision, and alternative/augmentative communication. Emmy Lou believed that screenings should be used to develop individualized plans for each child and that services should be put in place to meet their specific learning needs regardless of their ability to pay. Some of these services include training or therapy in the STAR Center's learning and literacy labs, art and music therapy, vision services and alternative communication.

An example of one of these services for children with attention deficit disorder is Play Attention. This program includes a screening and sixty (60) forty-five minute sessions using technology that was developed to monitor NASA astronauts to determine the level of attention they had during experiments in space. The sensors in the 'helmet' monitor a child's brain waves as they work through the software programs. This training also requires a one-to-one trained staff or volunteer to make notes of anything that happens during the session that was a 'distracter' for the child. These notes are used at the end of each session to introduce the distracter to the child as actions that stand in the way of their attending to task. The cost to complete this program per child is $1,500. The fund and trained 'Volunteers for Emmy Lou' will be used to provide scholarships for Play Attention and other special needs of children.

Emmy Lou had many areas of passion and commitment that she expressed on a regular basis. In her lifetime she strived to develop a collaborative effort with other organizations and The STAR Center to provide Music Therapy in the neonatal unit for babies and Sensory Auditory Processing evaluation and training. Based on research and experience, Emmy Lou truly believed that music therapy for a premature baby would make a difference in so many areas of this child's life including the difference in the ability to learn when starting to school. When a child has a disability in the areas of listening and auditory processing, Emmy Lou did not doubt that Sensory Auditory Processing evaluation and treatment would help the child to listen, learn and communicate. These are programs we will strive to develop in the coming years through partnership efforts and the development of this memorial fund.