Chelsea Hutchinson Foundation
Meet One Of Our Founding Members
The Chelsea Hutchison Foundation is a Colorado non-profit corporation formed by Julie and Doug Hutchison to provide help to individuals, particularly children and young adults, who have epilepsy. The main focus is to raise funds to provide grants for seizure-response dogs. These trained companion dogs may be able to detect an oncoming seizure and provide warnings and/or respond after the onset of a seizure Funds are also raised by this Foundation to provide grants for trained seizure movement monitors for those in need across the US. We proudly work with Emfit, SmartWatch and SAMiAlert movement monitors for those in need.
The Chelsea Hutchison Foundation is named for Julie and Doug’s beloved daughter, Chelsea. Chelsea was born September 28, 1992 and brought more joy into our lives than we can express in words. At the age of 11, she began having occasional seizures, until one night when she died in her sleep during a seizure in April of 2009. SUDEP (Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy) was the cause of her death at the age of 16. During the 6 years that Chelsea had seizures, no one ever told the Hutchisons a seizure could take her life, other than through an accidental fall or drowning. As a result of that omission, The Chelsea Hutchison Foundation raises SUDEP Awareness so other families are not blindsided.