Foundation donates iPads to WVU Medicine Children’s

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The Walking Miracles Foundation has partnered with Shentel Corporation/Sprint in Teays Valley to donate 10 Apple iPads to children undergoing cancer treatment at WVU Medicine Children’s to help caregivers and survivors navigate treatment and the next steps of getting back to their lives.

“We’re grateful to the Walking Miracles Foundation for donating these iPads to help our patients,” Anita Graham, Pediatric Hematology Oncology social worker, said. “We hope they will help them on their journey through treatment and beyond.”

The iPads are loaded with apps to help patients and caregivers access resources, including referral networks, survivorship clinics, and financial advice, to help them throughout their journey. They also serve as a way to entertain patients and connect with friends and family during treatment. 

“The tablet was created to help track the journey and treatment side effects and to help with health education, resources, and referral networks,” Brett Wilson, founder of the Walking Miracles Foundation, said.

The Walking Miracles Foundation is a non-profit organization established by Wilson, a two-time survivor of childhood cancer. Wilson said he saw that the challenges he and other survivors faced during and after treatment include a lack of resources, including survivorship plans, and the cognitive, physical, psychosocial, and other long-term effects that result from cancer treatment.

The Foundation currently provides childhood, adolescent, and young adult cancer survivors and caregivers from West Virginia with travel assistance, patient navigation resources, counseling resources, and connection to survivorship clinics with the support of grants and donations.

WVU Medicine Children’s – currently located on the sixth floor of J.W. Ruby Memorial Hospital, WVU Medicine’s flagship hospital – provides maternal, infant, and pediatric care for West Virginia and the surrounding region, giving care to high-risk mothers, premature infants, and children with life-threatening conditions through adolescence to adulthood. In 2020, WVU Medicine Children’s will move into a new, eight-story tower and three-story ambulatory care center to be attached to Ruby Memorial. For more information, including ways to support the $60-million capital campaign for Children’s new home, visit www.wvumedicine.org/childrens.