The organization has partnered with N.C. Children’s Promise, which benefits critically ill children and their families, and has pledged about $2.5 million over the next five years for a general pediatrics clinic that will be run by the N.C. Children’s Hospital.
The amount given each year will depend on that year’s fundraising total, said spokesman Brendan Leonard. In the 2013-14 academic year, the group raised more than $550,000 — the most in its history.
Leonard said Carolina For the Kids wants to make a bigger impact on the lives of the children and families who are served by the hospital.
“Our mission is to overcome childhood illness for patients served by N.C. Children’s Hospital by providing major medical, surgical, and emotional support,” he said in an email.
He said the hospital is running out of space because of certain specialty clinics, making a separate off-campus clinic necessary.
“Moving the general clinic off campus allows them to expand (speciality clinics), while hopefully making it easier for patients of the general clinic to receive care by not making them have to travel to campus,” he said.
Dr. Wesley Burks, chairman and chief physician of N.C. Children’s Hospital, said he is extremely excited about the clinic.
“All the way around, from the hospital standpoint, it’s an opportunity to have a place to meet the needs of the children of the community,” he said. “From the standpoint of a student-run organization, it’s pretty amazing for me to see the people that are doing this.”
