Recently the Lauren Small Children’s Center at Memorial organized our annual CMN Hospitals Day of Giving – Miracles on 34th Street in partnership with our local TV partner KGET-17 and two radio stations, Kern Talk 1180 and La Caliente.  We also added a new element this year to the mediathon, by hosting live weather segments and a Spanish TV broadcast in the afternoon on Telemundo, to better engage our employees in the CMN Hospitals day of giving campaign. 

In 1997, we began this special partnership with KGET-17, in the traditional mediathon format live from our hospital parking lot. Throughout the years, we have had many miracle children, clinicians and stories shared, and each year we gain more support from the local community. In 2016, we partnered with our local radio stations representing both English and Spanish. In 2020, we moved our broadcast to KGET-17 studios, in order to continue this important fundraiser for our pediatric service areas.  Graciously the studio also hosted our radio partners, and this has been the best scenario for our hosts and the producers of the 13+ hour event. 

This year, after feedback from our employees and community to return to the hospital location, we created another event within an event. In partnership with KGET-17, we broadcasted the weather live from the lobby, a pediatric room and Panda Cares Center of Hope in the healing garden. This allowed our pediatric doctors, nurses and specialists an easy way to participate in the event.  The best outcome was the opportunity to build awareness with our employees, patient’s families and share the opportunity to give as a Miracle Maker. 

The mediathon has three segments, morning, noon and late afternoon.  Each segment is hosted by local news talent. The assistant news director produces the event based on a timeline we share with them in the months of planning. We host one miracle family per timeframe, as well as clinicians and event partners, including CMN Hospitals corporate partners. The miracle families also pre-record interviews that are played throughout the day and in ‘cut-ins’, when we are not on live. The clinicians share how the funds raised through CMN Hospitals support their work and how important the new technology is in serving our local patients. Each year we have a title partner that presents a large check at the final hour of the campaign. In the last segment of the show, we run a ‘tote’ board that shares the total with the viewers.   

Another key partnership is with CMN Hospitals media event services (MES). We work with them to set-up the phone bank, call center, text-to-give, event web pages and donor thank you letters. The radio team works with the local team to ensure that they have the stories they need. During the event, they are available to work with local talent and producers to improve the outcome of the event. If there are any glitches, they are available to ensure that their team resolves the issue immediately. At the conclusion of the event, MES creates a report that shows the number of donors, total donated and other analytics to use for future planning. As a small team, we are grateful for this resource.   

Lastly, partnering with our marketing team is also a valuable resource to the success of the mediathon.  We work with them to create a communications plan that includes mailing flyers to past mediathon donors, as well as CMN Hospitals supporters. This year we created posters and placed them in key pediatric access areas to share about the event. We also worked with them to set-up the lobby to have a festive and welcoming environment for the day of activities.   

Overall, we had another successful mediathon building awareness about Lauren Small Children’s Center at Memorial and our partnership with Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. Most importantly, we raised additional funds to support our pediatric surgical suites project opening in early 2025. We look forward to continuing our partnership with our key partners on this event.