Newswise — Forty years ago, Michigan auto pioneer and philanthropist Charles Stewart Mott gave the University of Michigan $6.5 million through his foundation to build its first children's hospital. Ever since, the U-M C.S. Mott Children's Hospital has built a reputation as one of the nation's finest medical facilities for children, pregnant women and newborns.
Today, history will come full circle, when the foundation that bears Mott's name grants $25 million to the U-M Health System to help construct a new, state-of-the-art building for its children's and women's health services.
The grant by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, based in Flint, Mich., will carry Mott's legacy and his name forward into the 21st century. UMHS leaders hope to seek permission from U-M's Board of Regents this spring to proceed with the building project.
The new grant is the largest ever to the U-M Hospitals and Health Centers, part of the U-M Health System, and the largest single grant in the Mott Foundation's history.
Representing a sizable portion of the project's philanthropy goal, it adds tremendous momentum to the year-old effort to raise funds for the new hospital. The grant is part of the U-M's $2.5-billion The Michigan Difference campaign, and was awarded by the foundation's Board of Trustees after a formal application by UMHS.
"We're exceptionally grateful for the Mott Foundation's leadership in helping us better serve the children of Michigan, our country and the world," said Robert Kelch, M.D., U-M executive vice president for medical affairs and CEO of the U-M Health System. "It's a wonderful reaffirmation of the role that the Mott Foundation has played in the advancement of children's health throughout the years. We hope it will encourage many others to donate toward our goal."
"We consider this grant to be an important legacy to honor Mr. Mott and his strong, lifelong interest in the well-being of children," said William S. White, president and CEO of the Mott Foundation. "This is unusual for us because we don't normally support 'bricks and mortar' projects outside Flint. But we are extremely pleased to be part of such a bold step to ensure that children and families in Michigan and the United States have access to such an excellent facility and a superior staff."
UMHS has launched a web site — http://www.med.umich.edu/mottgrant — to encourage donations of any size for the new children and women's facility. The site invites the community to "Take the Mott Challenge" by donating via a secure donation form.
Already, UMHS has raised $9.6 million toward the new hospital, including more than $500,000 through the sale of blue rubber wristbands that have become a hot fashion item throughout Michigan. Local schools and youth groups, as well as large companies and community organizations, have all contributed to the campaign, led by U-M Regent David Brandon and his wife, Jan, and U-M head football coach Lloyd Carr and his wife, Laurie.
Large donations have ranged from thousands of dollars raised at events held by U-M student athletes, to a $4-million gift from the Carls Foundation, founded by Detroit industrialist Bill Carls.
The campaign for a new hospital has a special meaning for Kelch, who was a student at the U-M Medical School when the Mott Foundation made two grants totaling $6.5 million in 1964 and 1965, and a resident in pediatrics when Mott Hospital opened in 1969. He remembers vividly the day when young patients were wheeled from their ward in the old University Hospital into the new facility.
"It was so exciting to have our own building, the first since the University founded its first children's ward in 1921," he said. At the hospital's dedication in October 1969, officials unveiled a plaque containing one of C.S. Mott's favorite quotations:
"We approach all problems of children with affection. Theirs is the province of joy and good humor. They are the most wholesome part of the race, for they are the freshest from the hands of God."
The plaque still graces the entrance of Mott Hospital that faces the U-M medical center courtyard.
But even as it was unveiled, the fast pace of medical advances between the building's conception in the 1950s and its opening in 1969 meant the new building was already filled when it opened. Even improvements made during a major renovation in 1984, which was also funded in part by a $2-million grant from the Mott Foundation, only prolonged the building's usefulness.
"We're using every inch of space that we can, and serving more patients than ever from every county of Michigan and many other states and countries. But we need a new facility that we can design from the ground up to fit today's medicine and tomorrow's innovations," said Patricia Warner, MPH, associate hospital director for Children's and Women's Services.
In fiscal year 2004, 11,519 children were admitted to or born at the facility — a far cry from the 3,500 in the hospital's first year. In addition, there were 350,000 outpatient visits by children and infants to U-M clinics in 2004, compared with 25,000 in the late 1960s.
To meet this ever-growing need until a new facility is built, UMHS has been adding operating rooms, recovery rooms, intensive-care beds and medical imaging equipment, and expanding its facilities for the Michigan Congenital Heart Center.
But the proposed new facility will provide a new and larger home for inpatient and outpatient services provided at the current Mott Hospital, the Birth Center and the Holden Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. It will be designed with room and flexibility for today's care and tomorrow's medical advances, and will provide more comfortable and attractive facilities for patients and families.
The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, established in 1926 in Flint, is a private philanthropy committed to supporting projects that promote a just, equitable and sustainable society. It supports nonprofit programs throughout the United States and, on a limited geographic basis, internationally. The Foundation, with year-end total assets of approximately $2.52 billion, made 558 grants totaling $98.7 million in 2004. The foundation's web site is located at http://www.mott.org.
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