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Rady auxiliary gets its genes on

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Since 1953, the auxiliary at Rady Children’s Hospital has provided those extra little comforts, the blankets, birthday parties and toys, that help families cope with life-threatening childhood illnesses. But the group’s latest effort is all about genetics.

A just-launched campaign aims to endow a $2.5 million chair at Rady’s new genomics institute which sprung into being in 2014 with a $120 million gift from Ernest and Evelyn Rady. If successful, the effort will be the single largest donation in the auxillary’s history.

The plan is to raise the cash in addition to the $2 million per year that the organization’s 1,200 volunteer members already collect through myriad regular fundraisers held throughout the region.

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Auxiliary President Cheryl Steinholt said that it made sense to move beyond projects that provide direct comfort to an initiative that seeks a deeper understanding of the conditions that bring patients through Rady’s doors.

“You can’t hold it in your hand like a lot of the other things we do, but this seems to be the way of the future and how we can help make sure every child gets a good shot at life,” Steinholt said.

The auxiliary, which operates 22 individual units throughout San Diego County and part of Riverside County, has raised about $65 million over the last 60 years. It predates the hospital itself by about a year and has paid for many medical devices and staff services used there every day. Programs also work to smooth out the rough spots for kids who arrive with fewer resources than they need, providing food, clothing, financial assistance and recreation free of charge. There are also thoughtful touches like hand-knit blankets for newborns in Rady’s neonatal intensive care unit and toiletry kits with toothbrushes and other necessities for parents who arrive in an emergency and don’t want to leave their child’s side.

This work actually predates the hospital itself which was opened by the San Diego Society for Crippled Children on Aug. 19, 1954. Over the years, the name has changed, becoming Rady Children’s in 2006 after a $60 million donation from the Rady family.

What started as a simple but colorful place for children with polio gradually grew, adding a surgical pavilion in 1983 and becoming the region’s only pediatric trauma center one year later. The 520-bed medical complex on Children’s Way in Serra Mesa now handles the bulk of pediatric hospitalizations in San Diego County and recently performed its first heart transplants.

At every stage, noted Steve Jennings, senior vice president of the hospital’s charitable foundation, the auxiliary has been involved in supporting new initiatives, filling in the gaps with money raised in big and small chunks.

“They’ve been around for every change and, to me, that says a lot not only about the auxiliary but about the community,” Jennings said.

Genetics are the newest frontier, with hospital leadership working to build the Rady Pediatric Genomics and Systems Medicine Institute from scratch. Efforts are underway, hospital officials say, to recruit another top-flight researcher to fill the endowed chair that the auxiliary is working to create.

Last week the institute announced its first researcher, Dr. Christina Chambers from UC San Diego, who will lead an effort to study the genetic underpinnings of birth defects with no known cause. Toward that end, the institute plans to sequence the full genomes of 200 Rady birth defect patients per year.

Supporting this kind of blue-sky research is much less direct than the kinds of fundraising the auxillary’s units have done in the past. But even the most veteran members seem excited by the sheer size of the ideas coming out of Rady these days.

Muriel Kimball, 93, who joined the auxiliary in 1966, and who is still a member today, said anything that can help kids is bound to get support.

“We read all the time about new health treatments, and it’s exciting to know that you’re doing these big crazy things that are going to promote new treatments,” Kimball said.

The auxiliary operates in close-knit groups spread from the beach out to East County and from the border north toward Oceanside and Escondido.

There are a few large fundraisers every year such as the Celebration of Champions run in Seaport Village on May 16 and a Miracle Makers gala on June 6, but there are also dozens and dozens of smaller events run by each of the 22 local units.

On any given week, Steinholt said, events of all sizes and varieties happening.

“Last week is a good example. We had a 400-person tea at the Grand Del Mar on Sunday, and on Monday night, we were playing bunco at Lemon Crest Elementary School with 150 women from the Mountain View Unit,” she said.

While some might be skeptical that a grass-roots organization like the auxiliary can bring in so much additional cash on top of what it already raises, Steinholt seems confident in the auxiliary’s broad community base.

“We have grandmas, great grandmas, young moms, young professionals. I think we have a good touch on what’s going on in San Diego,” she said.

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