The Maimonides Pediatric Trauma Center marked a decade of life-saving care at its 10th Annual Community for Kids benefit, held Dec. 4 at the El Caribe Country Club in Mill Basin. The milestone event honored Declan Doyle, Monsignor Jamie Gigantiello, the Kids for Kids Foundation, and the Ben-Bay Kiwanis Foundation for their dedication to Brooklyn’s children, while raising critical funds for the borough’s only Level 1 pediatric trauma center.
“This is a very special event,” Doyle, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Maimonides Health, told Brooklyn Paper. “It kicks off the holiday season for many people, bringing our community together with our staff and Medical Center team members, and recognizing the work that we’re doing for such a great cause… We’re here for Brooklyn. We’re here for the kids of Brooklyn. We continue to invest in our resources, our medical center, our people to be able to support them to take care of the future of Brooklyn.”
The event celebrated not only the generosity of community partners but also the recent opening of Maimonides’ first standalone pediatric emergency department in Brooklyn, a state-of-the-art facility designed to provide expert, compassionate care close to home. Funds raised at the benefit directly support the trauma center and its pediatric programs, ensuring that every child in Brooklyn has access to urgent and specialized care.
Monsignor Gigantiello emphasized the hospital’s commitment to the community.
“From the very beginning, I saw that they were very interested in the community to help them do what they do best, to serve people, to cure people, but they always put an interest in the person, not always in the disease or the illness,” he said. “An honoring is really honoring everyone involved in the work of the hospital — the doctors, the nurses, the staff, and all those that support the work of the hospital.”
The evening highlighted the importance of community partnerships in sustaining Brooklyn’s only Level 1 pediatric trauma center.
With reporting by Ramy Mahmoud
