RICHMOND, Va. -- Just weeks before the Wonder Tower at the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU is slated to open, Richmond-based shipping company Estes made a special delivery for the medical center's future patients.
"One of the things I'm most proud of is that we have delivered so many packages," company president and chief operating officer Webb Estes said. "We will deliver more than 13 million packages to customers around the country, but this one is probably my favorite."
An Estes freight truck backed into the loading dock of CHoR Tuesday morning to drop off 100 Squishmallow plush toys.
Dozens of the shipping company's employees along with officials from the hospital were there to unpack and set up the stuffed animals in their new homes inside the hospital playrooms.
"Our playrooms are the places that we will provide on every inpatient floor that will support our children who are hospitalized so that they will have a little bit of normalcy while they are in the hospital with us," CHoR's vice president of operations Jeniece Roane said. "We will have a distraction, we will have toys that are age appropriate and developmentally appropriate so that as they are in the hospital they continue to flourish."
The Pack the Playroom effort comes as a follow-up to the Estes family’s 2021 $1.85 million donation to the Wonder Tower as part of the Children’s Hospital Foundation’s $100 million capital campaign. Estes Express Lines also donated $150,000 on behalf of its employees.
"We are really excited to be bringing world-class facilities online to support the care that our teams deliver every day," Roane said.
"Who knew that 100 Squishmallows would be my favorite delivery?" Webb said. "There's nothing better than knowing that our kids have an opportunity to be well taken care of."
The hospital said the Wonder Tower will have 72 patient rooms in addition to a 21-bay emergency department that will house the region's only level-one trauma center for children.
"We love opportunities to help out," Estes Vice President Carrie Estes Johnstone said." We couldn't be more excited to be a part of the journey."
"Just to think about that hundreds of children who are going to be the first to walk through these doors and experience this amazing facility," said Webb.
Patients are expected to move into the hospital on April 30.
"On move-day, these donations will go to support every child that will be here with us and that's just another way that our teams go about making kids very special and loved while they are at the hospital," Roanae said. "Finally our team and the children that we serve will be able to have a facility that will match the world-class care they've always received."
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