Curing Kids Cancer fulfills $1.2 million endowment to Prisma Health Midlands Foundation for Prisma Health Children’s Hospital in the Midlands
Curing Kids Cancer, a nonprofit organization devoted to funding cutting-edge pediatric cancer therapies, presented $240,000 to Prisma Health Midlands Foundation to benefit Prisma Health Children’s Hospital in the Midlands. The check presentation, held on February 20, marks Curing Kids Cancer’s fulfillment of a $1.2 million endowment pledge to support the Children’s Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders.
To honor Curing Kids Cancer’s extraordinary commitment, the center’s outpatient hematology and oncology clinic is taking on a new name: Gamecocks Curing Kids Cancer Clinic. The clinic, located on the second floor of Prisma Health Children’s Hospital in Columbia, provides care for children with cancer and blood disorders. Each year, the clinic diagnoses and/or provides treatment for 40-50 children and young adults newly diagnosed with cancer. In 2022, the clinic cared for 1,644 children and young adults either on active therapy or in follow up. Of that total, 859 were hematology/oncology patients, including children and young adults with life-threatening anemias and clotting disorders, like hemophilia, and 786 were children and young adults with sickle cell disease.
The name honors Curing Kids Cancer and acknowledges founders Clay and Grainne Owen’s love for the University of South Carolina and their gratitude to the many coaches and leaders at USC who have enthusiastically supported Curing Kids Cancer’s mission.
The Curing Kids Cancer Endowment supports the complex process of helping families navigate the clinical trials process, enrolling childhood cancer patients in clinical studies, ensuring patient data is accurately collected and enabling the hospital to provide cutting-edge treatments for all children being treated in South Carolina.
“We are immensely proud to have Curing Kids Cancer’s name attached to our clinic. Their endowment supports our mission of providing the best pediatric care to our patients,” said Dr. Stuart Cramer, Aflac Medical Director, Children’s Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders, Prisma Health Children’s Hospital in the Midlands. “The pediatric oncology community is grateful for Curing Kids Cancer, and we look forward to the advances in research and care that will result from this generous donation.”
The Curing Kids Cancer Endowment is driven by Grainne and Clay Owen, who founded Curing Kids Cancer after losing their son, Killian, to leukemia in 2003. Curing Kids Cancer is the largest donor to the hospital’s pediatric oncology program and has supported the center 2006.
“We are thrilled to support pediatric oncology research through this endowment and naming of the Gamecocks Curing Kids Cancer Clinic,” said Grainne Owen, Co-Founder and President of Curing Kids Cancer. “The more effective, safer treatments are available, the more healthy, happy childhood cancer survivors we will have. Killian would have been overjoyed to see what a wonderful, positive effect Curing Kids Cancer is having on the lives of children who are being treated here. We look forward to seeing how funding projects like this will have a tremendous impact on the future of childhood cancer therapies.”
The celebration – held at Prisma Health Children’s Hospital in the Midlands – also included remarks from Clay Owen, Co-Founder of Curing Kids Cancer; Mike Bundy, CEO of Prisma Health Richland; and Jeffery Faw, Executive Director and Chief Development Officer of Prisma Health Midlands Foundation. Top USC athletics staff, including Athletics Director Ray Tanner and Head Football Coach Shane Beamer were also in attendance to celebrate the milestone.
To give to Curing Kids Cancer’s Endowment benefiting the Gamecocks Curing Kids Cancer Clinic at Prisma Health Children’s Hospital in the Midlands, visit www.prismahealthmidlandsfoundation.org, click “donate,” then “donate now,” then select Curing Kids Cancer’s Endowment for Pediatric Oncology from the dropdown menu.
About Curing Kids Cancer: Grainne and Clay Owen founded Curing Kids Cancer, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit devoted to funding cutting edge pediatric cancer therapies, after they lost their son, Killian, to leukemia in 2003 when he was nine years old. Since it was founded in 2005, Curing Kids Cancer has raised more than $19 million to fund new childhood cancer treatments and pediatric cancer research. To learn more, please visit curingkidscancer.org.