Shriners Hospital for Children and www.Vacation.Rentals Join for First of Its Kind Fundraiser

BRANSON, Missouri., June 27, 2018 (Newswire.com) - ​Vacation.Rentals and the Shriners Hospital For Children of Saint Louis are teaming up for a first of its kind fundraiser. Homeowners who list their vacation homes for rent on Vacation.Rentals website will receive a free 6-month trial to test out the website and in return, a donation for $2 will be made to the Shriners for each new listing.

Michael and Handan Kugler – the managing partners of Vacation.Rentals have been ardent supporters of the Shriners Hospital For Children for many years through their annual charity auction held each May at their resort - Hunter’s Friend Resort. The idea to partner up with the Shriners came from a business meeting regarding marketing of the new website. Realizing that they would spend upwards of $20,000 for the initial run of ads, they wondered if their efforts would not be better suited to simply marketing to the owners directly and in the process help the Shriners raise funds.

Reaching out to the corporate office of the Shriners Hospitals for Children – St. Louis, the Kuglers received permission for the promotion and immediately set about to record a video both from the Director of Development, Terri Andrews and Mike Kugler with Vacation.Rentals.

Setting the initial goal in place, the owners of Vacation.Rentals limited the promotion to the first 10,000 listings or the 15th of July, 2018 (whichever comes first). Afterward, they will discuss the success of the program and other ways they can continue improving their website and the overall experience for the users while simultaneously continuing to come up with ways to further promote the Shriners Hospitals.

“Homeowners have been looking for a viable and affordable alternative place to list their vacation homes and Vacation.Rentals and we believe it is one of the best options out there. We charge no commissions, no fees, no surcharges – nothing. Just a straightforward annual subscription and nothing else. With the 6-month free trial homeowners have no risk other than 30 minutes of their time,” said Mike Kugler.

With listings already lining up in Colorado, Missouri, Florida, and even the Caribbean the site is off to a fantastic start and is guaranteed to save travelers money by eliminating the service fees they pay.

“Wanting to get the site up and running as quickly as possible, we began looking into various channels for marketing. Everything from pay per click to Facebook ads. At one point we simply asked ourselves – why not market directly to the homeowners themselves and use the same money for something good, like our charity that we have supported for the past 6 years?” Mike continued.

“They are doing something neat. They know how important our mission is to treat kids with orthopedic issues, regardless of the families ability to pay. I hope you’ll consider that. It’s win-win for everybody and we really appreciate it,” said Terri Andrews – Director of Development for the Shriners Hospital For Children in Saint Louis.

The Shriners Hospital For Children covers a network of 22 hospitals nationwide and is known as “The World’s Greatest Philanthropy.” Their hospitals treat children with conditions ranging from cleft lip to burns to spinal cord injuries. No family is ever turned away, regardless of their financial situation.

About Shriner Hospital For Children

The Shriners Hospitals for Children covers a network of 22 hospitals nationwide and is known as “The World’s Greatest Philanthropy.” Their hospitals treat children with conditions ranging from cleft lip to burns to spinal cord injuries. No family is ever turned away, regardless of their financial situation.

Treatment covers a wide range of pediatric orthopaedics, including scoliosis, limb discrepancies, clubfoot, hip dysplasia, and juvenile idiopathic arthritis, as well as cerebral palsy, spina bifida (myelomeningocele), and other neurological conditions that affect ambulation and movement. Three of the hospitals provide spinal cord injury rehabilitation that is developmentally appropriate for children and adolescents, with adventure and adapted sports programs, activity-based rehabilitation, aquatherapy, animal-assisted therapy, and other programs. Four of the hospitals (Boston, Galveston, Cincinnati, and Sacramento) provide care for children with burns, as well as treating a variety of skin conditions such as epidermolysis bullosa and toxic epidermal necrolysis. The Boston, Chicago, Shreveport, and Portland hospitals also provide treatment for children with craniofacial conditions, especially facial clefts.

The hospital in Sacramento is the only hospital in the Shriners’ system that focuses on all three areas of treatment (burns, orthopaedics, and spinal cord injuries), as well as research. The Sacramento hospital also houses its own orthotics and prosthetics lab and development facilities. Transportation to the hospitals is often provided free of charge for patients and their family by Shriner-drivers (also known as Hospital Tripsters) across the country, by van or by airplane. Children accepted for treatment become part of the Shriners Hospital system until their 18th or, sometimes, their 21st, birthday, eligible for both inpatient and outpatient treatment for all facets of their disability.

While the main emphasis of the hospitals is to provide medical care to children regardless of the family’s ability to pay, the mission of the hospitals also includes research on the conditions treated and the education of medical professionals, including medical residents and fellows, nurses, physical, recreation, and occupational therapists, speech and language pathology, psychologists, social workers, and child life specialists. *

*Source Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shriners_Hospitals_for_Children

About Vacarent, LLC

Vacation Rentals is a project that has been pursued for the past three years by the owner and developer of the site, Mike Kugler. Mike and his wife Handan own Hunter’s Friend Resort in Branson, Missouri. and have been in the short-term rental market for 15 years. During this time, they noticed a strong trend towards taking more of the owner/property managers’ revenue from listing sites, while giving less in return for owners who did not pay for premium listing services. In August of 2015, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) released new gTLDs to the marketplace in the hopes of spreading out some of the competition for highly lucrative domains. For the past three years, we have pursued and finally won the right of ownership for Vacation.Rentals. Vacation.Rentals launched live to the internet on the 30th of March, 2018 with the desire to bring a more affordable, user-friendly experience to the short-term, nightly rental market. This effort took months of hard work and commitment from a dedicated staff, along with a sizeable commitment in investment. It is our strongest desire to grow this site to over a million listings worldwide, and we will not stop until we have achieved this. We will accomplish this by demonstrating a commitment to owners as well as travelers. We do not collect any fees or commissions on bookings, just a simple annual membership fee for each home listed. We will not strike out contact information from either side, and encourage our owners to interact with us directly, to let us know what other features they would like to see added. We encourage everyone who has a vacation home for rent to list their property with us to take back control of their Vacation Rental.

Source: VacaRent, LLC

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