Walmart and Sam's Club Make History With $1 Billion Milestone

Local Walmart & Sam’s Club associates, customers, and members rose to the challenge this year to make miracles during this year’s annual campaign benefiting Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. But miracles weren’t the only thing made this year: Walmart and Sam’s Club stores have now written themselves down in history, officially having raised more than $1 billion dollars for Children’s Miracle Network over the last 31 years.

“Research done by Engage for Good shows that the cumulative $1 billion in cash raised for CMN Hospitals over the years by Walmart and Sam’s Club represents the largest amount ever raised for a nonprofit by one company in North America,” said David Hessekiel, president of Engage for Good. 31 years ago, Walmart founder Sam Walton told Children’s Miracle Network leaders “our associates will amaze you”, and $1 billion dollars later, he could not have been more correct!

Locally, Walmart & Sam’s Club associates raised over $350,000 for UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital in Gainesville during the September campaign, as a part of a national effort that raised more than $30 million for 170 member hospitals across the country. From South Georgia to South Florida, associates got creative at the register and around their stores/clubs, fundraising with silly hat contests, cookouts, bake sales, pot lucks, and more.

 

 Prior to the start of the campaign, associates from Walmart and Sam’s Clubs throughout the state gathered in Gainesville for the annual kickoff event, with more than 25 stores bringing wagons filled to the brim with toys, art supplies, and other essentials for children and their families in the hospital. Associates were able to tour the hospital as well as hear from hospital staff and a local ambassador family on the impact of the funds that they raise.

Thanks to the support from Children’s Miracle Network partners like Walmart & Sam’s Club, UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital can fund transformational research, purchase lifesaving equipment such as ECMO and heart-lung machines, and fund programs like Arts in Medicine and Child Life that benefit all pediatric patients. Tens of thousands of pediatric patients and their families pass through the halls of UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital every year, each of them impacted by the support of Children’s Miracle Network.

Thank you, Walmart & Sam’s Club, for your continued commitment to improving the lives of kids at UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital through your support of Children’s Miracle Network. Your support truly makes miracles happen!