Work on the eight-story, 260,000-square-foot tower expansion was started in August 2014. The project is being paid for through a combination of hospital funds, tax-exempt debt and charitable contributions.
New facilities will include a Newborn Intensive Care Unit with enhanced critical-care technology and a Comprehensive Cancer and Blood Disorders Center that will combine inpatient and outpatient care in one location for the first time. It also will feature large and modern single-family hospital rooms and other amenities designed to make hospital treatment less traumatic for patients and their families.
“This project is about so much more than bricks and mortar,” says Deborah A. Feldman, president and CEO of Dayton Children’s. “It’s about reaching new heights in pediatric health care for the children of our region. Strong support from the community will take this project from good to great — helping fulfill Dayton Children’s commitment to patients and families to provide the very best care close to home.”
Feldman said no donation is too small.
“Whether you can donate $10 or a million dollars or more, your participation in creating the children’s hospital of the future is what we’re asking for,” Feldman said.
Janel Barnett’s daughter was diagnosed with leukemia when she was seven years old. She said she knows what a new facility, technology and great staff will mean for future patients and their parents because she still remembers the doctor that helped her family.
“He was there for us. As were so many nurses, many of them are in the back of the room. These nurses became our family,” Barnett said.
Dayton Children’s officials noted that philanthropy has played a pivotal role in the hospital’s history. The final phase of the “Reaching New Heights” capital campaign unveiled Thursday seeks to raise $25 million, and hospital officials said that donations have already reached $21 million — more than Dayton Children’s has ever raised for one project.
Eight major donors have contributed gifts of $1 million or more. They include the Mathile Family Foundation, which hospital officials said provided “the pace-setting gift” for the campaign; the Mills family, which helped create what will be the Mills Family Comprehensive Cancer & Blood Disorder Center; the Berry family; the Soin family; Speedway LLC; TWIGS Auxiliary; the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation; and the Fred & Alice Wallace Charitable Memorial Foundation.
Dayton Children’s employees and physicians collectively have donated $1.1 million. And the Dayton Children’s Board of Trustees and Foundation Board members have collectively given more than $5 million, hospital officials said in a release.
The James M. Cox Foundation — named for the founder of Cox Enterprises Inc., the parent company of Cox Media Group Ohio and its media properties, including WHIO-TV, WHIO Radio, the Dayton Daily News, Springfield News-Sun and the JournalNews — has donated $250,000 to the Dayton Children’s campaign.
Julia Wallace, market vice president of CMGO and no relation to the Fred & Alice Wallace Charitable Memorial Foundation, said, “We are so fortunate to have a first-class children’s hospital in our community. That means that families can stay close in moments of crisis. At Cox, we are delighted to do our part to help improve those facilities.”
The fund-raising campaign will likely run until the patient-care tower opens in 2017, Dayton Children’s spokeswoman Stacy Porter said.
To learn more about the Reaching New Heights capital campaign and donate, log on to transformcare.childrensdayton.org.
Reporter Adam Marshall contributed to this story.
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