The Tenisha L. Barnes Memorial Fund

The Memorial Fund was created in honor of an angel, Tenisha Louise Barnes. Tenisha first touched my heart while I was employed at an early intervention program in Washington, DC. During this time, Tenisha was hospitalized with PCP pneumonia. I visited her and met her loving parents. Soon after, her mother passed away due to complications from AIDS, and her father was unable to meet Tenisha's medical needs. I immediately applied to become her foster mother. Two years later, by court intervention, Tenisha moved into my home. I registered her for speech, occupational, and physical therapy services. Six weeks after joining my family, Tenisha passed away from bacterial meningitis. Her name came up on the waiting list for therapy services six months after she passed. This fund is in her memory, so that no child is left behind!

~ Lori Ann Madhok, Executive Director

Out Came the Sun Foundation, Inc., was established in 1995 as a for-profit corporation to help fill a void in community-based developmental services in Maryland and the District of Columbia. Our primary focus was to deliver comprehensive pediatric developmental services in the natural environment, utilizing a child-centered and family-empowering approach. Early detection through developmental screenings and evaluations, followed by initiation of immediate direct service, proved to be the most effective method in promoting positive outcomes.

After 15 years of service, we found that families with Medicaid, private insurance, or those enrolled in federally funded programs were being significantly under-served. Therefore, Out Came the Sun was approved as a non-profit organization in July 2008. Since achieving non-profit status, Out Came the Sun Foundation, Inc., has continued to identify potential non-profit funding sources to support equitable services for all children living in the metropolitan D.C. area.

Today, our mission remains just that: through the non-profit supplemental funding provided to Out Came the Sun Foundation, Inc. the most intensive and appropriate natural-environment developmental services can be delivered to children in Washington, D.C., regardless of any family's socio-economic status.