Beacon's Children's Hospital get $100k from Pokagon Band of Potawatomi

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- On Friday, the Beacon's Children's Hospital in South Bend announced a donation of $100,000 by the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi and its Four Winds Casinos using the proceeds from the 2024 Four Winds Invitational golf tournament.

Chairman Pokagon Tribal Council Mathew Wesaw
"What took place here today was the culmination of the 13th year of our four wins invitational tournament with the LPGA beacons. Has been the charity of choice since we started this 13 years ago, and today we did our check donation of $100,000 which puts us just a little bit short of 1.1 million over those 13 years, we have, again, as I mentioned, signed up to do another three years with the LPGA, so there'll be additional money coming, but it couldn't go to a better cause from our perspective as a tribe," said Pokagon Tribal Council Chairman Mathew Wesaw.

"When we first started this, it was a couple years into it, we had one of our own citizens who had a child that was at the NICU unit back when it wasn't what it is here today, and to see where it's come from that point to now, it just, it just overwhelms you to know that you're part of this increase to where children and families don't have to go to like I said, Chicago or Indianapolis. Nothing wrong with those facilities, but now they can stay home and care for their loved ones."

Statement from Director of Women and Children's Services for Beacon Health System Jen Tonkovich:

"The funds from this year's event are going to purchase infant syringe pumps. We use these syringe pumps to deliver minute amounts of breast milk and formula to babies that are in critical status in our neonatal intensive care unit and our pediatric intensive care unit, and we rely on the community for the funds that we use to purchase these equipment pieces so that we can provide state of the art care to patients that are here in the hospital.

And we're just extremely grateful that we've be been able to have this ongoing partnership, because it does make a difference. It's Our Community taking care of each other, so we're grateful to be part of this again.

Thank you.

A lot of what we do in the children's hospital does rely on philanthropy. It takes all of us working together to make sure that we have the resources that we need to keep kids close to home, and that could be everything from supporting programming like Child Life therapy, music therapy, positions that we don't get funding for, we don't get reimbursed for, but we know that they're necessary for the development of our kids here in the hospital and for them to have good outcomes.

And again, the equipment, there's an ongoing cost. Technology is changing rapidly now, and we want to make sure that we're staying abreast of the changes so that we can provide top notch care to the patients that we're serving. And so, to have those funds coming in on a consistent basis helps us to make sure that we're staying abreast of all the changes that are occurring in healthcare."