Did you know?

Children’s Miracle Network hospitals:

• Provide $2.5 billion in charity (uncompensated) care each year.
• Treat 98% of all children needing heart or lung transplants.
• Treat 88% of all children with cancer.
• Devote 60% of their services to children under age 6, and 25% to newborns.
• Train 60% of pediatricians and 80% of all pediatric specialists.
• Treat 6 million children for accident trauma each year.
• Today at one Children’s Miracle Network hospital 200 children will visit the emergency room.
• Today at one Children’s Miracle Network hospital, 32 children will receive cancer treatments.
• One in five children today have a major chronic illness.

Why Your Support Matters

With each dollar raised, you help repair hearts, provide treatment, and most importantly give hope to 17 million kids. Here's a quick glimpse into the magnitude of what children's hospitals do for millions of children EVERY year:

4,153 REPAIRED HEARTS

Repairing a heart valve in a child averages $6500.

16,875 BRAIN MRI's

An MRI of the brain and brainstem to find tumors and other abnormalities costs $16,000.

1,211 BONE MARROW TRANSPLANTS

A bone marrow transplant to treat sickle cell anemia or leukemia averages $223,000.

3,600 LIVES WITHOUT CANCER

The average treatment for a child with cancer costs $75,000.

6,585 NICU BEDS

These state of the art beds cost $41,000

A well-equipped neonatal intensive care unit needs 15-20 beds.

*Costs are averages based on reports submitted by Children’s Miracle Network hospitals annually.

Dear Clubs,

   Please join me in supporting the Tyson Fitness Challenge to benefit Children’s Miracle Network. I would encourage you to use the online friends asking friends fund raising outlet to help you market your gym and increase enrollment while you support Children’s Miracle Network.

   Children’s Miracle Network has created an online, friends asking friends website for your participants to collect secure donations online. Because today’s youth primarily use the computer as a way to communicate with friends, this program gives you and your students the opportunity to reach a new target audience with ease and convenience. Since partnering in 2001, USA Gymnastics and its gym clubs across the country have raised more than $815,000 for Children’s Miracle Network. USA Gymnastics recently announced its goal to raise that total to $1 million by the end of 2008.

Through your participation in the Tyson Fitness Challenge and fund raising efforts for Children’s Miracle Network, you can be a part of helping us reach our goal! As a club owner, this site (http://usagym.childrensmiraclenetwork.org) gives you access to create a customized club page for your Tyson Fitness Challenge so you can invite the public to participate with just one email! You can even link this fund raising site from your club’s homepage to increase participation. The online program gives you the advantage of tracking donations from your participants in real time, and allows Children’s Miracle Network to send automatically generated tax receipts to your donors. Participants can join your team through your customized club page and then make individual fund raising pages of their own.

Each gymnast can e-mail family and friends and ask them to either make a flat donation, or donate a set amount per fitness skill that the gymnast plans to accomplish. Family and friends can make a secure online donation to Children’s Miracle Network, and all funds are submitted directly so you don’t have to worry about collecting cash and checks! The home page of this site will track the top fund raising clubs and individuals, so you can keep your team motivated and excited. To create a club page and get started, complete the steps below. (Note: Individual gymnasts will not be able to sign up until the club page is created.)

1. Go to: http://usagym.childrensmiraclenetwork.org  to create your club page.

2. Click on ‘Create Fund Raising Page’ in the left hand margin.

3. The site will automatically walk you through the steps to create your page. The system will ask you to set up a personal page first and then will prompt you to set up your team page. Club owners can fund raise from their personal page if desired and all funds will be contributed to your club total. Please note: club owners are not eligible for individual prizes. However, your individual fund raising and club’s total will count toward your eligibility for winning the club prizes.

4. Once your personal page is created, you can create your club page. This club page is where you want to list the details of your Tyson Fitness Challenge activities. You must create a club page in order for your members to participate in the online program.

5. Once your club page is created, you can invite members to participate by emailing them through the site. Make sure you tell them your club and coach’s name exactly as you entered it on the site.

Your members will need to have this information in order to join your club’s page.

If you have any questions, or need help regarding the online program, please email support.usagym@childrensmiraclenetwork.org or call Cindee Starkie with Children’s Miracle Network at (801) 278-8900.

 Sincerely, Mary Lou Retton

Click here to locate the children’s hospital nearest you!

At first, Whitney Pinson’s symptoms seemed harmless enough. "I had really bad earaches," the level 6 gymnast from North Florida Gymnastics Center said. "They got worse and worse." Her parents took her to the doctor and were sent home with antibiotics. "No big deal," said her dad, Tracy.

As the earaches persisted, Whitney’s doctor decided to do some exploratory surgery. He believed scar tissue might be causing the girl’s pain. However, when he came out after surgery, the news was grim. "He had a somber face," said Whitney’s mother, Michelle. "He told us it was a tumor." The then ten- year- old had been diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma, a type of bone cancer in 2004.

Whitney’s parents say the hardest part was telling their daughter she had cancer. "One of her first questions," Michelle said, "was can I die from this? I was hoping I would not have to answer that question, and I did it the best way I could, I said, ‘yes, honey people die from cancer everyday’ and she said ‘I’m not going to.’ Right away, she was the rock."

Whitney chose to undergo a condensed protocol of chemotherapy treatments every 14 days with radiation treatments mid way through- a goal to finish treatments in seven months verses a standard twelve months. Her main concern was getting back to gymnastics, and the condensed treatments, and long stays in the hospital were all worth it because in February 2005, Whitney was a cancer survivor!

Whitney resumed life as a normal 11-year-old, getting back into the gym and tumbling as well as exploring other sports. Just before entering the 7^th grade, she attended a volleyball camp, where she started having problems with double vision and headaches. An MRI was done to check the tumor and showed no changes. Doctor’s ordered a spinal tap to see if spinal fluid was causing the headaches. The results of the test showed that Ewing’s cells were in her spinal fluid. As of August 2006, Whitney was once again fighting for her life.

For Whitney’s parents, having to tell their daughter that her cancer had returned was harder than telling her the first time. Since August of 2006, Whitney has gone through many chemotherapy treatments and once again proved herself to her parents as “the strongest person they have ever known.”  Her progress has been better than doctors expected, and after a bone marrow transplant in April of 2007, Whitney is currently disease free. After a long journey, the now 13-year-old Whitney is very excited to get back to a normal teenage life.

Participate in a Tyson Fitness Challenge fund raiser to help children like Whitney, get better. Funds raised by the USA Gymnastics community ensure children receive the best possible care whenever they need it.