And the announcements and great news keep rolling in. Children’s Health and UT Southwestern Medical Center finished February with high fives. Make that $500,000 each thanks to the Mark and Marcia King’s The MMK Foundation.
Old hands at providing funding to both organizations, this million-dollar pledge is “the largest gift ever made by The MMK Foundation, which was established in 2007 to effect positive, sustainable change in the lives of children, citizens and communities globally.”
The Foundation’s focuses on the following:
- Improving the lives of children through health, education, and technology
- Helping individuals by providing necessary resources, skills, and opportunities
- Supporting families to remain intact and retain stability
- Strengthening communities by responding in times of extraordinary need
- Making investments and improvements in the environment and infrastructure
According to Children’s Medical Center Foundation President Brent Christopher, “We are grateful that the Kings have made an even deeper commitment to helping us make life better for children. Their desire to help our tiniest, most vulnerable patients is indicative of their Foundation’s mission to improve the lives of children everywhere. The impact of this gift will be felt for generations.”
Mark explained, “Providing these gifts fulfills our Foundation’s goals of addressing important issues that impact childhood development and the future of our community’s citizens. There is no better place to make an impact on a child than as a newborn in intensive care. Helping that child by helping him or her develop fully into a healthy adult is good for everyone.”
This specific gift will focus on “enhancing the pediatric hospital’s neonatal ICU, furthering groundbreaking research at UT Southwestern and providing unrestricted funds for the critical needs of children.”
Marcia said, “And funding medical research is a solid investment in the future for us all. UT Southwestern physician-scientists are among the best in the world, and we are pleased to play a small part in helping them push their ideas to the next level.”
Over the years, the Kings and their Foundation “have supported health care research initiatives conducted by Dr. Jyothsna Gattineni, who is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at UT Southwestern and a pediatric nephrologist at Children’s Health.”
UT Southwestern President Dr. Daniel K. Podolosky concluded, “Support from philanthropists like Mark and Marcia King is critical to advancing the most promising research to address the unmet needs of children, including chronic kidney disease and digestive diseases. Because of their generosity, Dr. Jyothsna Gattineni and her UT Southwestern colleagues are able to accelerate their progress toward better treatment options and outcomes for newborns and provide much-needed hope for their families.”