Kansas City Area Associates' Passion for Local Children's Hospital Moves Alliance Data to its Fund Innovative Research Center

by Tama Moffitt, Senior Supervisor of Payment Solutions, Alliance Data Retail Services

I have heard the words “our children are our future” throughout my adult life. Like many, I thought this applied to the education of our children, but planning for the future of our children starts well before the school age. It starts as early as pregnancy, when all you want is for your child to be healthy. No one wants their child to get sick, but if they do, having them cared for by a highly skilled and caring medical professional is top of the list for parents.

After moving to the Kansas City area with a special needs child, I was quick to learn about Children’s Mercy Hospital. Over the course of 25 years, I can relate to many hospital stories. The story I tell today is one I tell with great pride. It is the story of how the company I work for, Alliance Data, lives its core value to give back to the communities in which we live and work.

Over the past several years, Alliance Data has been making donations to organizations in locations where we have large associate populations. This year, Alliance Data is focused on expanding our support of children’s hospitals. There is a large concentration of associates in the Kansas City area, and a handful of those associates can share personal stories about their experience with Children’s Mercy Hospital. For this reason, Alliance Data has made $250,000 donation to the hospital for the creation of a state‐of‐the‐art, institutional bio‐repository, as well as to the hospital’s Child Life program.

A tissue and tumor bank, or biorepository, would provide a convenient and central location for Children’s Mercy researchers to access samples and the data they need to conduct innovative research and explore new treatment options. Making patients’ and families’ experiences as positive as possible, the Child Life department assesses and provides for the developmental and coping needs of patients. Children’s Mercy’s Child Life Specialists understand how foreign a hospital environment is to patients and families, so they strive to put control, choices and comfort back into the experience by asking, “What do you like to do at home?  What would you like to do here? What helps you get through stressful times?” and then provide interventions and activities accordingly.Alliance Data’s partnership with Children’s Mercy, at this time, and for the purposes intended, just makes sense. I am only one of many associates from here in the Lenexa facility that has been touched by Children’s Mercy. I cannot thank Children’s Mercy enough for everything they have given me, particularly the ability to watch our child turn into a young man. Knowing that I work for a company that has a heart this big, well, all I can say is thank you, Alliance Data, for helping ensure our children grow up healthy and get to experience their future.

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Tama Moffitt is a Senior Supervisor of Payment Solutions at Alliance Data Card Services. In her role, Tama spends her day coaching and developing associates to deliver best in class service to the customer while providing solutions that work.