Campaign for Children’s of Mississippi Surpasses $100M Goal with Gertrude C. Ford Foundation Gift – HottyToddy

By Annie Oeth

UMMC communications

The philanthropic drive to assist pay for a multi-story enlargement of the state’s solely youngsters’s hospital not solely met however surpassed its $100 million aim thanks largely to a $2.5 million present from the Gertrude C. Ford Basis.  

The Marketing campaign for Youngsters’s of Mississippi has now raised $101.5 million.  

The Gertrude C. Ford Basis has lengthy been a supporter of the College of Mississippi, the place the Gertrude C. Ford Basis Middle for the Arts and Gertrude C. Ford Scholar Union are beloved spots on the Oxford campus. On the Medical Middle, the Gertrude C. Ford Basis has been a steadfast supporter of quite a few packages and tasks together with the MIND Middle analysis clinic that bears its identify. 

The Marketing campaign for Youngsters’s of Mississippi was launched in 2016 by Sanderson Farms board chairman and CEO Joe Sanderson and his spouse, Kathy, with a $10 million private donation, and has set a report for capital marketing campaign fundraising on the College of Mississippi Medical Middle. The funds raised allowed for the development of a state-of-the-art facility that doubled the sq. footage dedicated to pediatric care on the Medical Middle. 

“This has been the dream of so many individuals for thus lengthy,” stated Dr. LouAnn Woodward, vice chancellor for well being affairs on the College of Mississippi Medical Middle and dean of the Faculty of Drugs. “The Marketing campaign for Youngsters’s of Mississippi had an audacious aim – $100 million – however when Kathy and Joe Sanderson took the lead, I had little question the aim could be reached. We’re on this unimaginable new youngsters’s hospital tower due to the love for youngsters and households that the Sandersons share with Mississippians from all walks of life.”   

The Kathy and Joe Sanderson Tower is a complement to the Blair E. Batson Tower, named after the primary pediatrics chair at UMMC. The Sanderson Tower contains two neonatal intensive care flooring, a flooring devoted to pediatric intensive care, and a pediatric imaging middle. The Youngsters’s Coronary heart Middle additionally calls the Sanderson Tower residence.  

Contained in the Sanderson Tower, a dozen surgical suites accommodate procedures from uncommon to routine. Two flooring of outpatient clinics make follow-up care extra handy, and the Sanderson Tower has a devoted parking storage and coated walkway subsequent door. This walkway and pavilion are named for the Gertrude C. Ford Basis in recognition of its generosity. 

Because the Sanderson Tower’s opening on Nov. 2, 2020, greater than 13,090 surgical procedures have been carried out. Contained in the 88 non-public neonatal intensive care rooms, greater than 1,511 infants began their lives. Over 1,604 youngsters acquired important care within the 32 non-public pediatric intensive care rooms. Greater than 63,635 specialty clinic visits have stored sufferers wholesome, and greater than 100,893 X-rays, CT scans, ultrasounds and MRIs had been carried out within the child-friendly Pediatric Imaging Middle contained in the tower. 

“The impression the Sanderson Tower has had within the care of Mississippi’s in poor health and injured youngsters can’t be overstated,” stated Dr. Mary Taylor, Suzan B. Thames Chair and professor of pediatrics. “We now have a hospital that matches the world-class abilities of our pediatric well being care crew.” 

Seeing youngsters and households getting the care they want contained in the Sanderson Tower has been the expertise of a lifetime, stated Joe F. Sanderson, CEO and board chairman of Sanderson Farms and, with spouse Kathy, chair of the Marketing campaign for Youngsters’s of Mississippi.  

“Kathy and I knew the wants of the kids’s hospital had been nice, however the aim of $100 million appeared lofty,” Joe F. Sanderson stated. “Launching the Marketing campaign for Youngsters’s of Mississippi was a leap of religion – religion within the divine, and religion within the generosity of Mississippians. That we’ve not solely reached this aim however surpassed it reveals Mississippians’ dedication to their youngsters and their households.”

The Gertrude C. Ford Basis, Sanderson stated, helped push the marketing campaign over its aim. “As soon as once more, the Ford Basis has helped make Mississippi a greater place to name residence. We’re grateful for the inspiration’s philanthropy and imaginative and prescient.” 

Kathy Sanderson stated she and her husband, together with the marketing campaign’s steering committee, are grateful to all who made donations of all quantities. “Every present to the Marketing campaign for Youngsters’s of Mississippi was a present from the center.”  

Stephen Sims, director of the Gertrude C. Ford Basis, praised the Sandersons and former New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning and his spouse Abby, honorary chairs of the marketing campaign, for his or her management. 

“It’s an honor for our basis to play a small half of their marketing campaign to help the kids’s hospital, which is a godsend not just for our Mississippi youngsters however for youngsters throughout the southeast,” he stated. “The outcomes of this marketing campaign will contact lives for a few years to come back.”  

For Nolee Jones, the state’s 2022 Youngsters’s Miracle Community Hospitals Champion, the Sanderson Tower is the place she sees the cardiologists who hold her wholesome. The household enterprise, Bates Inflatables, has proven help for the marketing campaign by elevating $1,000 in Nolee’s honor.  

The 9-year-old from Pearl was born with a congenital coronary heart situation that was repaired throughout her infancy by surgeons at Youngsters’s of Mississippi. She visits the Youngsters’s Coronary heart Middle for outpatient check-ups. 

“We’re so grateful that Nolee can get the care she wants right here in Mississippi,” stated Nolee’s mom, Chelsea Bates. “The Sanderson Tower has the superior areas and gear that she and different sufferers want to remain wholesome.”