MemorialCare Miller Children’s and Women’s Hospital Celebrates Cherese Mari Laulhere Children’s Village Donors

Several donors gathered last Tuesday to celebrate the success of the Cherese Mari Laulhere Children’s Village located at MemorialCare Miller Children’s and Women’s Hospital in Long Beach. The building was built to provide pediatric patients with all of the specialty outpatient care that they need in one location. 

The Children’s Village outpatient center houses more than 30 different specialties which usually aren’t provided at the same location. The purpose of this visit was not only to celebrate the donors and how much their donations have helped the community but to give them guided tours around the different floors of the center. The tours were given to around 80 to 100 top donors, guests, hospital employees, and hospital executives.

The Children’s Village has a very modern aesthetic to it with interactive screens, brightly colored walls and furniture, and plenty of child-friendly decorations to uplift the patients. Those who are considered exclusive donors were able to see their room signage for the first time since donating and were able to get a better sense of where their contribution went.

These tours were given to the visitors through the eyes of a child to try and experience the same fascination a young patient would have while walking through the center. 

“We are tremendously grateful for the many donors who made significant gifts to this project and so many other projects across the hospital,” said Robert Gunsalus, the president of the Long Beach Medical Center Foundation. “We celebrate their generosity to uplift it as a model and hopefully inspire others to follow their example.”

According to memorialcare.org, the foundation has supported the hospital for more than 55 years and raises between $7 to $15 million annually. MemorialCare is a nonprofit health system that includes four hospitals, two medical groups, imaging centers, surgical centers, and other services like the Children’s Village.

The funding for the Village’s completion came after a two-year campaign asking members of the community to help contribute to the construction through donations. “Imagine being a low-income single parent having to find time to take your child from one place to another in our congested metropolis,” said Gunsalus. “They would often miss appointments and struggle to make appointments and get to the appointments, but now there is a state-of-the-art one-stop shop where a child can come and get all of the care that they need.”

By Andrew Ayala