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Credit union donates to WVU Medicine Children’s Hospital

The West Virginia Central Federal Credit Union made a donation Thursday to the WVU Medicine Children’s Hospital in Morgantown. From left are credit union President and CEO Michael Tucker, Director of Children’s Miracle Network WVU Medicine Children’s Hospital Tammy Heitz, WVU Medicine children’s champion Brantley Polling and credit union Loan Sales Manager Julie Wolfe. (Photo by Tyler Bennett)

PARKERSBURG — The West Virginia Central Federal Credit Union presented a donation of $20,000 to the WVU Medicine Children’s Hospital in Morgantown on Thursday morning.

A partnership that has been going on for 20 years between the two, the $20,000 will be added to the $100,000 raised during the entire partnership, according to credit union President and CEO Michael Tucker.

“We really are a huge backer of WVU Children’s Hospital Children’s Miracle Network. We’ve probably donated over $100,000 over the years and I certainly want to continue to support,” Tucker said. “It’s wonderful when you meet Brantley (Polling) and children like that who are in need, we want to be part of the solution if we can.”

For the first time in eight years, the credit union was unable to hold its Color Run that normally takes place in July due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The credit union came up with the idea for selling tie dye masks to raise funds for the children’s hospital.

According to Julie Wolfe, the credit union’s Loan Sales Manager, the idea was started by Allie Bennett, West Virginia Federal Credit Union director of community engagement, who was not present for the donation.

A total of $14,000 was raised just through mask sales and other donations made by the credit union staff to reach the final amount raised.

“We just added to it and made it $20,000. I thought that was phenomenal and that’s all the community support,” Wolfe said. “They help us make it successful. We were so excited that we had so much support from them with the sales.”

The donation will go to the new Children’s Hospital beside WVU Medicine in Morgantown. Construction started in 2019 with the hospital is scheduled to open in the summer of 2021.

The facility also will be the first learning children hospital. It will be its own building, not connected to the main building, said Director of Children’s Miracle Network WVU Medicine Children’s Hospital Tammy Heitz.

“I just think it’s amazing that we have partners like the credit union that can make this happen for the state of West Virginia. For us to have something like that right here in our region that we can treat our families, our kids, the women. It’s just phenomenal,” Heitz said, adding the new hospital will create 500 jobs.

The credit union also sponsored a room where doctors can meet with the families and where they can get together and talk about treatments, according to Tucker.

Also present for the donation was WVU Medicine Children’s 2020 Champion Child Brantly Polling. From Wood County, the 8-year-old was selected to be champion child to represent West Virginia and portions of the surrounding states. Born with spina bifida and hydrocephalus, Polling doesn’t let anything get him down and is an amazing representative of the specialized care that the hospital provides, said WVU Medicine Children’s Associate Director of Community Relations Erin Blake.

“He just works around anything just to adapt to do anything that any other child could do. Brantley came to WVU Medicine Children’s a couple years ago, and he has been thriving ever since. We just love spending time with him and just having him represent us,” Blake said.

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