A hospital for kids is being built in Salt Lake City with kids' help.
Some 260,000 children in 552 schools throughout Utah, southeastern Idaho, western Wyoming and eastern Nevada are participating in "Kids Giving for Kids" campaign, kicked off this week to raise money for Primary Children's new hospital.The $67 million facility, on Salt Lake City's east bench on the University of Utah campus, is scheduled to open in February 1990.
The campaign asks youngsters to "work a while . . . buy a tile," for 10 tiled wall murals and for other areas of the hospital.
Schoolchildren in the area have been devising creative ways to do just that. For example, Niels and Elizabeth Hansen, ages 10 and 8, from Highland Park Elementary, and Jenny Smoot from Indian Hills Elementary, baked cookies and sold them at a "cookie stand" at the side of the road to raise money to help build the new medical center.
Students at Maeser Elementary School in Provo organized a read-a-thon and collected pledges for pages or books read. In Davis School District, students have organized car washes, while other Salt Lake students have cleaned garages and baby sat for the good of the project.
One boy, a student at Jordan Ridge Elementary, helped his grandfather grow a pumpkin patch, then sold the pumpkins to raise money for the new hospital.
"Years from now, these children can take their children and grandchildren to the hospital and show them how they helped build one of the more advanced children's hospitals in the nation," said campaign chairwoman Margaret Garff. "It's important for children to be a part of this historic event, much as they were when the existing hospital was built in the early 1950's." Back then thousands of children each purchased a brick for construction to help build Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake's Avenues area.
"Children who `buy a tile' will feel like it is their hospital and hopefully will be less anxious if they ever have to be a patient," Garff said. "Most important, is the satisfaction of knowing they truly have helped make this hospital a more comfortable place for all kids."
Art for the new hospital's murals was selected from 50,000 entries to the "Kids' Art For Kids" contest, as were 26 alphabet symbols to be used for donor-recognition plaques and carpet squares. In addition, 150 other student drawings will be framed and hung throughout the new facility.
Each of the 8-by-10-foot murals will be made up of thousands of tiles. Children who contribute will be listed in a book permanently displayed in the new 525,000-square-foot, four-story-high facility.
Garff said the "Kids Art for Kids" campaign will help raise part of the $12 million coming from community giving to help finance the new facility.