A $150,000 gift from the Wheeling-based Circus Saints & Sinners club will support building healthier futures for children at the new WVU Medicine Children’s Hospital. The nine-story, 150-bed facility is under construction next to WVU Medicine’s J.W. Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown and is slated for completion in early 2022.
Circus Saints and Sinners National Director Paul Smith said the club will dedicate the annual proceeds from its Party on the Plaza music festival over the next five years to meet its commitment to WVU Medicine Children’s. Panhandle Cleaning and Restoration is the title sponsor for the event.
“Healthy citizens make for a healthy and better West Virginia, and that starts with first-rate care for children and their mothers,” Smith said. “We’re proud to support the mission of WVU Medicine Children’s, and with the help of partners like our friends at Panhandle Cleaning and Restoration, we’re able to make this commitment to the women and children of our state and region.”
The inaugural Party on the Plaza, held this past July, netted $35,000 for WVU Medicine Children’s. The day-long festival attracted nearly 1,000 attendees to downtown Wheeling for food, beverages, and live music. In recognition of the club’s support, the waiting and reception area of the diagnostic and imaging floor at WVU Medicine Children’s Hospital will be named for Circus Saints & Sinners.
“WVU Medicine Children’s relies on communities all around our state to help us meet the needs of the kids and families in our care,” Amy Bush, WVU Medicine Children’s chief operating officer, said. “We are so grateful for Circus Saints & Sinners’ dedication in helping us fulfill our mission to build healthier futures for our children.”
Among other features, the new WVU Medicine Children’s Hospital will include private inpatient rooms, a dedicated pediatric emergency department, a spa-like birthing center, pediatric and neonatal intensive care units, operating rooms and cardiac catheterization, interventional radiology, and endoscopy facilities, a heart center, a blood disorder and cancer center, a maternal-fetal medicine clinic and an on-site pharmacy.
The Circus Saints & Sinners is a non-sectarian association of successful professionals dedicated to fellowship and charitable giving. Founded in 1929, the club has raised more than $1.5 million for area charities, including over $500,000 in the past decade alone. In 2015, it was recognized by Governor Earl Ray Tomblin with the Governor’s Service Award through Volunteer West Virginia, the state’s Commission for National and Community Service.
The club’s gift bolsters the “Grow Children’s” capital campaign, which seeks to raise $60 million in private support for the new hospital and associated program improvements.
