Every day, donors like you make gifts of all sizes to build a healthier future for children and expectant mothers. Your support makes our hospital a special place for our patients and families, and we are tremendously grateful.
The Dinner Benefits Our Community’s Tiniest Members
On May 3, we celebrated our biennial gala, The Dinner. Held at the Stanford Red Barn Equestrian Center, the dinner and live auction featured special guests Rob Lowe and James Corden, and raised over $3.2 million in commitments for the compassionate care and innovative technology that families need in our hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit.
Special thanks to our co-chairs Gioia Arrillaga, Suzanne Crandall, Susan Ford Dorsey, and Stacey Siebel who championed the event, and the event’s steering and honorary committees for their tireless efforts. Thank you to everyone who made The Dinner a success! Your generosity will save the lives of our tiniest and most vulnerable patients, and put families on track for brighter, healthier futures.
8-Year-Old Bakes Cookies to Find Cures
When her friend was diagnosed with Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome (PANS), 8-year-old Dana Perella wanted to help. So, she put on her oven mitts and got to work! Dana, her brother, Carson, and their friends have baked 10,650 cookies to sell to raise money for child health causes, including PANS research. Her second-grade class in Boulder, Colorado, even contributed 100 pounds of baking ingredients.
In total, Dana’s campaign, called Cookies4PANS, has donated an incredible $30,000 to the scientists at the Stanford PANS Clinic, “so they can do lots of research and discover better treatments for PANS,” says Dana. “Then kids like my friend might not get so sick, and maybe the kids who are already sick can get better.”
Lightspeed Venture Partners Supports the Center for Definitive and Curative Medicine
We thank Lightspeed Venture Partners for its generous $150,000 gift to support the Center for Definitive and Curative Medicine. This vital funding will enable Maria Grazia Roncarolo, MD, chief of pediatric stem cell transplantation and regenerative medicine and co-director of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, and her team to continue their efforts to bring novel stem cell and gene therapies from the laboratory to the bedside. We could not be more grateful for your belief in the promise of these therapies! It will lead to life-changing treatments for the patients who come to our hospital to receive the best possible care.
Monthly Donors Make a Special Difference
Each year, thousands of children with long-term and complex health care issues turn to Stanford. We appreciate our Monthly Giving Partners, whose dependable gifts add up quickly and help provide the best care to every patient who comes through our hospital’s doors. Thank you, monthly donors. You are a lifeline to our patients and give the gift of hope and health year-round! To learn more about monthly giving, visit supportLPCH.org/Monthly.
Sit Family Renews Their Commitment to Heart Research
Andrew Sit was diagnosed with a complex congenital heart defect soon after he was born. In 2006, he needed open-heart surgery, and his cardiologist referred Andrew to cardiothoracic surgeon Frank Hanley, MD, at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford.
After Andrew’s surgery, the Sit family wanted to support the surgical techniques Hanley and his research team pioneered. They established the Sit Family Endowed Research Fund for pediatric cardiac surgery. The Sit family continues to stay involved in the innovative work happening at Packard Children’s, and, last fall, made a new commitment toward their endowment.
“We are forever grateful for the exceptional skill of Dr. Hanley for Andrew’s successful surgery,” say Ron and Teresa Sit. “We are also grateful for the quality care that Andrew and we, his parents, received before, during, and after his open-heart surgery from the entire staff.”
Today, Andrew is thriving and recently graduated from college with degrees in aerospace engineering and mechanical engineering. Thank you, Sit family, for helping make healthy futures possible for more children!
Jazz Pharmaceuticals Supports the Child Life Team
Jazz pharmaceuticals made a generous gift of $50,000 to support the Child Life and Creative Arts Department at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. This gift will allow the Child Life team to use developmentally appropriate education, support, and therapeutic play to help children receiving care on the fifth floor of our new Main building, where we will provide gene and immunotherapy treatments. Thank you for making our patients feel better during their hospital stay!
Ambassadors Lunch and Learn, Featuring Selma Blair, Raises Funds for NICU Psychologist
In March, the ambassadors for Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital celebrated 12 years of service to our hospital at their annual Lunch and Learn at Sharon Heights Country Club in Menlo Park. Guests heard from acclaimed actress, mother, and health advocate Selma Blair. She spoke with Sue McCreadie, MD, about how she coped with postpartum depression and her recent multiple sclerosis diagnosis, as well as how she balances her roles as a mother and caregiver.
This year’s Lunch and Learn benefited the Ambassadors’ 2018–2019 Fund-A-Need, supporting a dedicated clinical psychologist in our hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit and intermediate care nursery. The Fund-A- Need goal of $200,000 was met and surpassed through the generosity of Ambassadors members and their guests.
More than 220 Ambassadors work tirelessly to promote the health of children and expectant mothers in our community through philanthropy, volunteerism, and education. Thank you, Ambassadors, for your support!
Local Merchants Give Back Through Shop for Packard
Several local retailers and restaurants hosted in-store shopping events in March that benefited kids and families at Packard Children’s. Special thanks to our Shop for Packard partners Shreve & Co., Amour Vert, California Pizza Kitchen, J. Crew, J. McLaughlin, Jenni Kayne, Madewell, SliderBar, CH Premier Jewelers, See’s Candies, Vince, and Vitality Bowls who donated a portion of sales to Packard Children’s. We are grateful to the wonderful retailers, restaurants, and shoppers who support Packard Children’s.
Louise Scott Finds a New Way to Give
Louise Scott is a longtime supporter of our hospital and has kindly given her time, talent, and gifts. She is a member of the Allied Arts Guild Auxiliary, a former president of the Association of Auxiliaries, and a previous member of our hospital and Foundation boards. Louise enjoys knitting blankets and other gifts that our patients and families cherish.
Most recently, Louise directed a gift from her Individual Retirement Account (IRA) to the Lucile Packard Children’s Fund, which provides crucial funds to support care for all, innovative research, and family and community services. Known as the “IRA rollover,” donors who are 70½ or older can make gifts of up to $100,000 per calendar year directly from their IRA to qualified charities such as the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health and do not pay income taxes on the distribution.
In 2018, 68 donors gave over $445,000 from their IRAs to our hospital and the child and maternal health programs at Stanford University School of Medicine. Thank you, Louise, and all donors who give through their IRAs.
Tad and Dianne Taube Commit $6 Million to Pediatric Cancer Research
Silicon Valley philanthropists Tad and Dianne Taube have committed $6 million to Stanford University School of Medicine to establish the Taube Initiative in Pediatric Cancer Research, which will further the development of innovative therapies to improve the cure rates for childhood cancer. “It is essential that we help society’s most vulnerable, our children, to beat cancer,” says Tad Taube, chairman of Taube Philanthropies. “Researchers at Stanford, one of the world’s preeminent research institutions, are leading the way in the search for better treatments for this dreadful disease. We are proud to support them in their effort to save countless children’s lives.”
The gift will accelerate the work of researchers at the School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford who are exploring promising areas of discovery such as cancer genomics and immunotherapy. The new Taube Initiative in Pediatric Cancer Research will support two faculty members performing cutting- edge cancer research in key areas and establish a fund for future innovation.
“Through their generous contribution, Tad and Dianne Taube are accelerating the development of childhood cancer therapies that are more personalized, more precise, and more effective,” says Lloyd Minor, MD, the Carl and Elizabeth Naumann Dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine. “I am immensely grateful for their support of Stanford Medicine’s researchers and their dedication to improving the lives of children around the world.”
The Taube Distinguished Scholar in Pediatric Immunotherapy will focus on developing and advancing immunotherapy treatments for childhood cancers. This type of therapy is associated with fewer long-term toxicities than chemotherapy and radiation, which kill cancer cells but also destroy healthy cells and weaken the immune system. Immunotherapy equips the patient’s own immune cells to specifically attack cancer cells.
The Taube Distinguished Scholar for Pediatric Oncology will focus on developing customized therapies to treat childhood cancers utilizing knowledge of the genetic differences found in cancer cells.
Secondly, the Taube Innovation Fund in Pediatric Cancer will support innovative research and clinical projects within the Division of Hematology/Oncology in the Department of Pediatrics at the School of Medicine.
Stanford has built world-class clinical, research, and manufacturing facilities and recruited leading researchers. Its researchers are already leaders in translating the lessons of immunotherapy, pioneered for leukemia, into new treatments to combat incurable solid tumors that affect children.
The Taubes’ gift will help sustain this progress and continue to grow a vibrant research community dedicated to curing children with cancer.
“We are committed to advancing the treatment of childhood cancer, but we could not do this work without the generous support of donors like the Taubes,” says Mary Leonard, MD, MSCE, Arline and Pete Harman Professor and chair of the Department of Pediatrics. “We are very grateful for philanthropists in our community who support our efforts to help children live longer, healthier lives.”
This article originally appeared in the Spring 2019 issue of Packard Children’s News.