Family Home Donation Benefits Neonatal Intensive Care
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Family Home’s Robin Dean (fourth from left) presents Elizabeth Kim, M.D., a donation of proceeds from Tiny Hands Monster Bash for the UAMS neonatal intensive care unit. They are joined by NICU staff.
Dec. 30, 2014 | Arkansas’ tiniest babies got a special holiday gift thanks to a fundraiser hosted by the Family Home.
A check for $13,150 benefiting the UAMS neonatal intensive care unit was presented to Elizabeth Kim, M.D., assistant professor of neonatology in the UAMS College of Medicine, by Robin Dean, coordinator of the UAMS Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute Auxiliary Cancer Support Center at the Family Home.
The donation represented a portion of the proceeds from the annual Tiny Hands Monster Bash fundraiser held in October to benefit the NICU and the Family Home.
“This generous donation allows us to offer services we otherwise wouldn’t be able to provide for our newborns and their families. Each year, the NICU staff works together to decide how we can use these funds to help our families who are going through such a challenging time,” Kim said.
The UAMS NICU provides state-of-the-art care for many of Arkansas’ tiniest infants — some weighing less than two pounds and requiring hospitalization for weeks or months.
The donation will be used for programs or services that directly benefit the infants and their families. Previous donations from Tiny Hands Monster Bash have been used to purchase cribs and infant developmental equipment; to perform minor renovations to the unit’s kitchen and family room; and to create plaster molds of each baby’s hands, giving parents a tangible remembrance of their time in the NICU.
An amount equivalent to the donation will be used by the Family Home to provide lodging and maintain the facility for parents of babies in the NICU. The remainder of the event proceeds underwrites a portion of the Family Home’s operating expenses.
The Family Home is a private, nonprofit organization that provides low-cost, comfortable housing for parents of infants in the NICU and for patients in the UAMS Cancer Institute. The home also houses the Cancer Institute’s Auxiliary Cancer Support Center.