When a child is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, everything changes in an instant. Parents leave work to sit bedside. Savings accounts disappear. Mortgage payments become uncertain. The emotional toll can be overwhelming, and for many families, the fear of losing financial stability arrives alongside the fear of losing a child.
For more than two decades, Autumn Strier has dedicated her life to ensuring families do not have to face those impossible circumstances alone.
As Co-Founder and CEO of Miracles for Kids, Strier has spent the last 22 years building one of California’s most comprehensive support systems for families with critically-ill children. What began as a small employee-giving initiative in 2004 has grown into a nonprofit serving more than 480 families annually, providing everything from housing and bill pay assistance to mental health services, basic necessities, education, employment support, and long-term stability resources.
Under Strier’s leadership, Miracles for Kids has raised nearly $65 million and developed a holistic continuum of care that addresses the often-overlooked realities families face during prolonged medical crises. While doctors focus on treating a child’s illness, Miracles for Kids helps families keep the lights on, remain in their homes, put food on the table, access counseling, and build a pathway toward long-term stability.
“At the heart of everything we do is a simple belief: families should be able to focus on their child’s healing, not on whether they can pay rent, keep their utilities connected, or provide basic necessities,” Autumn Strier, Co-Founder and CEO of Miracles for Kids. “When a family is facing the unthinkable, stability becomes one of the greatest gifts we can provide.”
Today, Miracles for Kids supports families affected by more than 135 life-threatening illnesses and conditions through a comprehensive continuum of support designed to address both immediate needs and long-term stability.
Through its Lifeline program, families receive assistance with critical household bills, while the Safe Haven program provides housing support, including apartments at two Miracle Manor properties that offer stable housing for families in treatment. The Miracles for Kids Balance program delivers no-cost wellness activities such as the surf and paddle camps, movie nights and counseling programs that equip family members with stress reducing techniques to battle depression and anxiety… even mental health services to address the emotional toll of prolonged illness. The Boost program provides food, clothing, household supplies, toys, transportation assistance, and other basic necessities through community initiatives such as Basket of Miracles, which takes place several times throughout the year. The next Basket of Miracles event is scheduled for July 18 and will focus on providing Back-to-School Baskets filled with school supplies and other essential items to help children start the new school year with confidence. One of the organization’s most impactful and recent initiatives is its Pillars program, which reflects Strier’s belief that true support extends beyond emergency assistance. The program helps families build long-term stability through employment readiness resources, financial literacy education, and access to career and educational opportunities. By helping parents strengthen their financial footing while caring for a critically-ill child, the program creates pathways toward independence, resilience, and hope for the future.
Unlike traditional health-adjacent nonprofits that focus primarily on medical support, Miracles for Kids tackles the root causes of family instability: housing insecurity, financial hardship, food insecurity, job disruption, and untreated emotional distress. These challenges often determine whether a family can remain intact while caring for a critically-ill child.
Families in crisis need more than emergency assistance. They need systems that help them withstand months or even years of treatment, uncertainty, and financial strain. Through strategic partnerships with leading medical institutions, sustainable fundraising efforts, and programs designed to address the whole family, Miracles for Kids has become a model for how communities can support families facing prolonged medical crises.
The impact is measurable. In 2025 alone, Miracles for Kids helped stabilize 550 families, provided more than 49,553 nights of safe housing, and delivered ongoing wellness therapy services to 481 individuals at no cost.
“Compassion is important, but compassion alone isn’t enough,” Strier said. “Families need systems they can rely on. They need stability. They need support that lasts beyond the emergency. That’s where real change happens.”
A graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara and New York University’s Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service, Strier built her expertise through roles in government, municipal finance, nonprofit management, and public policy before founding Miracles for Kids. Her experience working with government agencies, financial institutions, and nonprofit organizations helped shape the systems-based approach that has become the organization’s hallmark.
For Strier, every dollar raised, every partnership established, and every program developed serves a singular purpose: ensuring that no family facing a child’s critical illness should have to navigate that journey alone. The numbers tell part of the story. The families who remain housed, the parents who can stay beside their child’s hospital bed, and the children who can focus on healing because their family’s basic needs are being met tell the rest. For 22 years, Autumn Strier has demonstrated that compassion and sustainability can work hand in hand and that when families are given the resources to remain stable during their darkest moments, entire communities become stronger as a result.
To learn more about the Miracles for Kids programs, including bill pay assistance through the Lifeline Program, housing through the Safe Haven Program, wellness services through the Balance Program, basic necessities through the Boost Program, and long-term stability through the Pillars Program, please visit www.MiraclesForKids.org.
ABOUT MIRACLES FOR KIDS: Miracles for Kids is a non-profit serving children with life-threatening illnesses and the families that care for them. Founded in 2004 by Co-Founder & CEO, Autumn Strier, the organization creates stability for families that are crumbling from the financial and emotional devastation of fighting for their child's life. With programs providing financial aid, basic needs, housing, and wellness to patients and their families, Miracles for Kids fulfills a mission to help caregivers battle bankruptcy, homelessness, hunger, and depression, so they can concentrate on what matters most. In 2025, 82 cents of every dollar collected was spent on programs that directly benefit the families they serve. Based in Orange County, California, Miracles for Kids currently serves families in treatment at CHOC Children’s, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital, Rady Children’s, UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital, By the Bay Health, City of Hope, Loma Linda University Hospital, Phoenix Children’s Hospitals. Follow on Instagram @MiraclesForKids to see how you can make a difference and get involved at MiraclesForKids.org.
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