Virginia Division Gives $10,000 Grant to Support Local Hospital’s Pediatrics Program

More than 4,000,000 children in the United States are uninsured. Many of these children come from low-income families with at least one working parent. For these low-income families, when their child is sick, costs like transportation and medicine cause immense financial strain.

Dollar Bank is proud to have supported Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters in Norfolk, Virginia with a $10,000 grant for their General Academic Pediatrics (GAP) program. This grant will go towards supporting transportation vouchers, medication assistance and safety supplies for underserved and uninsured families of children treated at the hospital.

Dollar Bank has supported the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters since 2022 and the GAP program since 2023. The program’s goal is to address the physical, emotional, educational and social needs of the children treated at the hospital along with their families. More than 70% of families served by GAP meet the federal poverty definition. A social worker is assigned to help the families identify and prioritize their most pressing needs

Oftentimes, while going through the heartbreaking process of watching their child fight through illness, these families have the added layer of worrying about how they are going to get to and from the hospital and how they are going to pay for supplies and medication. Programs like the General Academic Pediatrics program can help to ease this burden and Dollar Bank is a proud partner.

“This grant will go towards the ancillary details, the behind the walls things that people don’t think about when their child is sick,” said James Hinton, Jr, Vice President of Community Development. “It will support the unexpected things.”

The grant will provide families with gift cards to purchase groceries, offset medication costs and other necessities and cover transportation via gas vouchers and bus tickets. But support doesn’t stop there. At the end of the summer, the GAP social workers provide children with backpacks and school supplies to get them ready for school.

Additionally, the program provides these families with ways to keep their children safe in the car by providing car and booster seats and educating them on the safest ways to install a car seat and secure their child in it. Some families co-sleep with their children due to either a lack of space or resources to purchase a bed or crib. In addition to educating the family on the importance of the child sleeping independently, the GAP program also provides portable cribs as an alternative.

After three years of partnership, the relationship between Dollar Bank and the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughter has grown stronger. Through grants such as these, children and their families fighting illness and working to keep up financially can get their needs met.

Pictured above are staff members of the GAP program with James Hinton, Jr. and Lisa Keller Saunders , Community Development.