A LOCAL IMPACT
Columbia, South Carolina is home to the state’s first children’s hospital — Prisma Health Children’s Hospital — Midlands, a true place of hope and healing. As a proud member of CMN Hospitals, Prisma Health remains committed to ensuring every child who enters its doors has the opportunity to thrive and reach their fullest potential. This mission is made possible through its powerful partnership with University of South Carolina Dance Marathon (USCDM), where students channel their passion into creating life-changing miracles for those most in need.
USCDM strives to educate the Columbia community on the importance of safeguarding children’s health through its year-long fundraising efforts. Through members’ collective efforts, the organization’s vital funds provide the resources, care and support children need to heal healthy physically, mentally and emotionally during their hospital journey.
Every dollar raised goes directly to transformative initiatives, such as charitable care, equipment, research, education, service advancement and patient services. To date, the over $9 million raised by USCDM has brought countless miracles to those treated at Prisma Health, such as through fully funding the accessible outdoor “University of South Carolina Dance Marathon” playground that helps restore a sense of normalcy and joy for patients. In focusing not just on providing the best possible treatment for kids, USCDM funds contribute to their emotional well-being by directly supporting the hospital's Child Life Program.
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THE CHILD LIFE TEAM
Full of unknowns, the hospital can serve as a stressful and scary environment. Navigating one’s new surroundings and interacting with new people disrupts a child and their family’s routine and sense of normalcy. Therefore, Prisma Health’s Child Life Program helps reduce patients' fears, anxieties, and pain by introducing healthy coping strategies.
In standing alongside patients at every step of their treatment journey, the Child Life Team, made up of Child Life Specialists, Music Therapists and facility dogs, focuses on the emotional and developmental needs of children and their families in a healthcare setting. Through therapeutic play, preparation and medical education catered to each patient’s individual experiences, the Child Life Team gives way to an increased sense of comfort, security and safety during their time at the hospital and beyond.
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“Dance Marathon is such a huge support to our Child Life program. Their fundraising dollars have allowed us to expand our program in ways we never could have imagined. From being able to increase our staff size, to cool game tables, to an amazing adaptive playground, USCDM has given us tools to make hospitalized kiddos’ lives better. We have expanded into new areas and now cover all of inpatient, plus day hospital/sedation, NICU, ER, and outpatient surgery. But maybe one of my favorite aspects of Dance Marathon is the energy that you all bring to our team and our hospital,” Becca Kelly, a Child Life music therapist, said.​​
