LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – Children\u2019s Miracle Network has raised a record $2,050,074 for UMC Children\u2019s Hospital this year. The total came after a year of fundraising and a day full of donations during the 43rd Annual Children\u2019s Miracle Network Celebration Broadcast.<\/p>\n
Dr. Brian Payne, chief medical officer at UMC Children\u2019s, said the impact of the donations is on display during the broadcast.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou saw the kids and the parents playing with the blocks and doing things, you recognized their family is whole,\u201d Payne said. \u201cAnd without that support and without that help, they\u2019d be missing something. That\u2019d be a devastating loss to their family. And it\u2019s all because of the miracles and support that our community gives to give us everything we need to care for these kids in a beautiful way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fundraising happens year-round<\/p>\n
Donations to the hospital happen throughout the year through multiple channels, including drive-thru locations such as Panda Express and Dairy Queen, grocery stores like Costco Wholesale, United Supermarkets, Walmart and Sam\u2019s Club, and schools such as Lubbock Cooper\u2019s East Elementary.<\/p>\n
Volunteer groups including the Lubbock Lions Club and Lubbock Monterey AMBUCS also contribute, along with area businesses including Parkhill, Take 5 Oil Change, J. Hoffman\u2019s, Glasheen, Valles & Inderman, and CityBank.<\/p>\n
UMC employees also support the fundraising effort, including UMC Physicians, the NICU at UMC Children\u2019s Hospital, Pediatrics and PICU staff, the UMC Auxiliary and the UMC Spirit team.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re able to sell T-shirts and tote bags, the chili cook-off is a great success for us that we\u2019re able to raise CMN dollars through that,\u201d NICU nurse Kelsie Hatchett said.<\/p>\n
UMC\u2019s 30-Minute Club also contributes through payroll donations.<\/p>\n
CMN Director Sarah Simmons says all funds raised go directly to UMC Children\u2019s Hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re proud to say that and to know that when we raise those dollars, we\u2019re taking it right back to the Children\u2019s Hospital for pediatric services and support programs, life-saving equipment, and whatever the hospital needs, that\u2019s what we\u2019re working to provide,\u201d Simmons said.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s donations will fund transport incubators for the hospital\u2019s NICU.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose new incubators, we actually needed two of them,\u201d Payne said. \u201cThey\u2019re both about to expire with how long they last. And so this gives us that funding we need to really get these kids who are most critically sick and the smallest that we can bring the ICU to them and bring them back here safely where they can get the best care possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Donations support patients including burn survivor Tak<\/a>, premature babies Eleanor<\/a> and Thomas<\/a>, and cancer warrior Zackary<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause they\u2019ve done so much for us and it just felt right to be able to give back in whatever way we could. And if by sharing our story with others would help raise money for the hospital, we would be more than happy to do that,\u201d Maria Riojas, Thomas\u2019 mom, said.<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 KCBD. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – Children\u2019s Miracle Network has raised a record $2,050,074 for UMC Children\u2019s Hospital this year.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[152214,152215,7990,24210,4145,21739,11349,9405,9283,1822,17853,152218,319,168,170,169,152217,229,17155,21740,21583,40847,3659,152216,152213,13887,33418,20373,512],"class_list":["post-439570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-43rd","tag-brian-payne","tag-brittany-crittenden","tag-broadcast","tag-center","tag-childrens","tag-donation","tag-fundraiser","tag-fundraising","tag-hospital","tag-impact","tag-incubator","tag-kcbd","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news","tag-maria-riojas","tag-medical","tag-million","tag-miracle","tag-network","tag-nicu","tag-record","tag-sarah-simmons","tag-telethon","tag-transport","tag-two","tag-umc","tag-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}