Champions for children to be honored at dinner

Staff report

POLAND

The fifth annual Champion for Our Valley’s Children dinner is planned for 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at The Lake Club, 1140 Paulin Road, and Eleanor Watanakunakorn and the Tod Family will be honored as champions by Akron Children’s Hospital Mahoning Valley.

Four organizations also will receive honors after being nominated by individuals in the community: Rescue Mission of the Mahoning Valley, St. Elizabeth Dental Clinic, Touched by Nathan Foundation and The Vindicator.

The annual celebration will highlight Akron Children’s progress in the Valley and acknowledge those who helped, such as donors, volunteers, staff and community partners.

Reservations are $50 per person. Tables of eight and corporate sponsorships are available. For reservations and information call 330-746-9122 or visit www.akronchildrens.org/champions.

Watanakunakorn will receive special recognition for her outstanding support and generosity regarding the hospital. For more than 40 years, she and her family have supported health care in the Valley.

For more than 30 years, her husband, Dr. Chatrchai Watanakunakorn, was an educator at Northeast Ohio Medical University and an infectious disease specialist for St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital.

After he died in 2001, his wife continued his work by generously supporting Northeast Ohio’s medical community, including Akron Children’s Hospital. In 2010 a gift from her established the Dr. Chatrchai and Eleanor Watanakunakorn Fund for Medical Education, which supports continuing medical education programs.

Watanakunakorn was moved to give back again after her granddaughter, Alexis Caroline Watanakunakorn, spent the first month of her life at Akron Children’s in 2013. She first was in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at St. Elizabeth’s, then at the Special Care Nursery on the Beeghly Campus in Boardman.

Watanakunakorn’s $1 million gift helped establish the newly renovated SCN, named in honor of Alexis.

The Tod family will receive recognition for its long-standing service and legacy of caring. The Tods will receive the first Champion for Our Valley’s Children Legacy Award for its more than 100 years of support.

The family’s allegiance to health care began in Akron. Col. George Tod Perkins donated property in 1891 for the second location of the Mary Day Nursery, which eventually become Akron Children’s Hospital.

Col. Perkins’ uncle Gov. David Tod of Ohio converted his Mahoning Valley home into a hospital in the early 1900s. Funds bequeathed by the estate of John Tod, the major benefactor of Youngstown Hospital Association Nursing School, were used to convert the facility into Tod Children’s Hospital in 1972.

Since the opening of the children’s hospital, Tod family members have been impassioned advocates for pediatric care in the Valley.

Fred Tod was a founder of the hospital, and his wife, Nancy, served on its Women’s Board for many years.

Their daughter, Sallie Tod Dutton, became a member of the Tod Squad, a volunteer women’s group.

Her cousin David Tod II was chairman of the hospital’s annual golf outing for years.

Akron Children’s opened the Beeghly campus in 2008, upgrading specialty care to the area after Tod Children’s closed.

The Tod family has continued its philanthropic mission for the local hospital, supporting Clubs for Kids and the Youth Clinic.