History

In 1974, Cris and Gary Embleton lost their adopted Korean daughter Lori Jo to an illness that could have been cured by $5.00 worth of medicine in her own native country. A few years later, when Cris learned of a Guatemalan child who would die without donated heart surgery, she put her grief to work and found the care needed to save the girls life in the U.S.

In 1979, Healing The Children began to take shape. By 1981, requests for help were coming in from all over the world and more formal organization was necessary. So Cris and Gary Embleton, Naomi Bronstein, and Maureen O'Keefe founded Healing the Children as a nonprofit corporation in Spokane as "Heal The Children". A quarter of a century after the first child was sent home to a new life, the organization has grown to 13 chapters in 23 states that collectively have provided care to more than 85,000 children in close to 100 countries.HTC continues to pursue its work of healing the children...around the corner and around the world.

Wes Allen was a pediatric cardiologist practicing in Spokane in 1979, when he was approached by Healing the Children and asked to examine a seriously ill child from Guatemala. In desperate need of heart surgery, the girl's family was too poor to provide the medical help she needed. Dr. Allen not only examined the girl without charge; he helped arrange for her heart catheterization and open-heart surgery to be donated by Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane.

Other children followed and before long Dr. Allen went from being a donating physician, to organizing medical team trips to foreign countries, and last but not least, becoming a strong advocate for the growth and development of a national organization dedicated to providing medical care to needy children around the world.

Although the HTC headquarters remains in Spokane, a quarter of a century after the first child was sent home to a new life, the organization has grown to 13 chapters in 23 states that collectively have provided care to more than 85,000 children in close to 100 countries. HTC continues to pursue its work of healing the children...around the corner and around the world.