Your Impact
What we do
Children's Hospital Foundation works to maximize philanthropic impact in children's health at Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU, driving excellence in patient care, education and research. We are dedicated to raising and stewarding philanthropic resources that will enable CHoR to become a top, nationally-ranked children's hospital.
Your new children's hospital
Introducing the Children's Tower
Now open, the 500,000-square-foot , state-of-the-art inpatient facility was thoughtfully designed with the understanding that children see the world differently. Featuring new operating rooms, imaging capacity, emergency department space, family amenities and our extraordinary team of caregivers, we're fostering a life-changing, child-centered community dedicated to providing the special care children need, in a safe space crafted especially for them.
Your children's hospital is nationally ranked!
Your support helps us advance our programs. We're celebrating 10 years of being ranked among the best children's hospitals in the country by U.S. News & World Report. Whether they're coming from around the corner or across the country, thousands of families turn to CHoR each year for quality, safe and innovative care for needs ranging from common to complex.
Child Health Research Institute
Thanks to community support, our research institute is collaborative and multidisciplinary – spanning across all of our specialties. From discovering how to stem the rising tide of obesity to developing new aerosol treatments for cystic fibrosis, we're finding new ways to improve the lives of kids in our community and beyond.
Areas of Focus
Since 2010, donor support has propelled Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU to build new programs, recruit outstanding clinicians and enhance the care available to children in our region. Explore some of the areas that have grown thanks to donors like you:
Improving the lives of children
The children featured on this website represent just a small fraction of the children that come to Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU each year. We hope their stories will help demonstrate how your support allows Children's Hospital Foundation to provide the funding necessary to develop the clinical, research and teaching programs that will benefit our community's children now and into the future.
Damarius
Damarius helped us mark an exciting milestone as the first patient admitted for a research study in the Children's Tower. When his calf became enlarged, his parents took him to the nearest emergency room. He then went to an orthopaedist for concerns of compartment syndrome, a painful condition that occurs when pressure builds in and around muscles. When that was ruled out, he was referred to Dr. Amy Harper on our neurology team.
Kyleigh
Kyleigh loves knock knock jokes and game nights with her family. Her mom, Kelsey, describes her as a “girly girl” who loves pedicures, shopping at Claire's, pink and purple — and racing dirt bikes with her brothers outside her Dinwiddie County home. Doctors diagnosed Kyleigh with rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare type of cancer that forms in the soft tissue. In July 2022, she received her first chemotherapy treatment, which continued for nine months, and involved inpatient and outpatient care.
Morgan
Morgan's uncommon pediatric diagnosis required unmatched teamwork. “It started in April 2022. All she could tell us was her stomach was hurting and the pain would come and go,” said Joey and Holly Gifford of their 11-year-old daughter. Morgan's primary care physician thought she may be dealing with acid reflux and recommended antacid. By June, the pain would get worse for a week, then go away, in a cycle that continued for several months. The Giffords questioned whether or not it could be anxiety related, but the pain grew more frequent and intense as time went on.
Making an impact
In a single year, more than 80,000 children receive care at CHoR, and Children's Hospital Foundation helps ensure that these children continue to have world class pediatric health care close to home, right here in Central Virginia.
Children and families come to us from Virginia, across the U.S., and often from out of the country. We cover nearly every pediatric health care need under the sun - from casts to cancer - from simple to complex - we do everything in our power to give kids a shot at a healthy future.