Money for Children's Hospital

If Franciscan Hospital for Children, struggling in recent years due to state funding cuts, can raise $500,000 by year’s end, a fellow Brighton-based organization will match the figure in a fundraising challenge aimed at aiding the hospital’s day school for children with multiple, complex physical and cognitive disabilities.

The New Balance Foundation named Franciscan Hospital’s Kennedy Day School the beneficiary of the challenge, said a recent press release.

“We are so pleased with the generosity of the New Balance Foundation,” Paul DellaRocco, the hospital’s president and CEO, said in the release. “Make no mistake, the challenge to raise $500,000 will not be easy, as we typically raise about 2 million dollars annually. But I’m optimistic we can leverage New Balance’s support to secure major gifts from our friends and the local corporate and foundation world.”

Several donors have quickly demonstrated support, collectively committing around $150,000 to the challenge, or about a quarter of the way toward's the goal Franciscan hopes to reach by December so that New Balance will add another half million, said the hospital's Chief Development Officer Steven Snyder.