PA Kiwanis Foundation

• Kiwanis Children's Heart Center at Janet Weis Children's Hospital, Geisinger Medical Center, Danville
• Hershey Medical Center Cooperative Initiative
• Pediatric Telemedicine Initiative

Responding to the overwhelming demand for services and new techniques in the area of pediatric cardiology, the Pennsylvania Kiwanis Foundation started a $1 Million campaign in 1987 to establish a Kiwanis Children's Heart Center. This specialized unit withing the Janet Weis Children's Hospital is dedicated exclusively to the care of pediatric cardiac patients.

Geisinger Medical Center provides service to half of the counties in Pennsylvania through local health facilities. In 2003 the Board unanimously approved funding 50% of a $300,000 Pediatric Telemedicine Initiative to place echocardiography machines in community health centers. This allows children to have tests performed locally and read in real time by specialists at Geisinger Medical Center.

The foundation is currently working to expand the program through a cooperative initiative with the Hershey Medical Center.

The Kiwanis Children's Heart Center helps provide care for pediatric heart patients across the Commonwealth. In keeping with our theme of "Reaching Out," the Foundation has also brought over forty children with life threatening heart problems from Jamaica to the Kiwanis Children's Heart Center at Geisinger for care not available in Jamaica.