The Children’s Home of Pittsburgh & Lemieux Family Center to receive Multimedia Upgrade for Families and Children Thanks to the “Make Room for Kids” Project

Pittsburgh, PA  (April 22, 2013) –On Wednesday, April 22, 2013, The Children’s Home of Pittsburgh & Lemieux Family Center recevied a full-building multimedia upgrade thanks to Make Room for Kids (MR4K), an extension of Austin’s Playroom Project, which is an initiative of the Mario Lemieux Foundation. MR4K is funded by social media and local Microsoft employees.

This year, as the beneficiary of the MR4K initiative, The Children’s Home & Lemieux Family Center received Xbox and Kinect consoles with controllers and games, televisions and movies, Skype Units, Computers, laptops and printers, to be used in patient rooms and playrooms in the three units of the Pediatric Specialty Hospital, inside Child’s Way^® Pediatric Extended Care Center, as well as in the living room spaces of the Lemieux Family Center and inside Austin’s Playroom.      

“The Children’s Home of Pittsburgh & Lemieux Family Center is very excited and so grateful to everyone involved in the Make Room for Kids initiative for helping us give the children and families we serve more resources and technology to enhance their stays with us,” said Pamela Schanwald, CEO, The Children’s Home.  

The Make Room for Kids initiative was created by Ginny Montanez of the popular Pittsburgh blog That’s Church, as a social-media driven fundraising effort. The Mario Lemieux Foundation became involved with MR4K, as an extension of their Austin’s Playroom Project, a program where the Mario Lemieux Foundation establishes playrooms in medical facilities. Local Microsoft employees, including Luke Sossi, Microsoft Enterprise Sales Manager for the Mid-Atlantic States District, are instrumental in the success of the project.

About The Children’s Home of Pittsburgh & Lemieux Family Center
The Children’s Home of Pittsburgh, established in 1893, is an independent, non-profit licensed organization that promotes the health and well-being of infants and children through services which establish and strengthen the family.  These programs include: Adoption — serving infants, birthparents and persons seeking to adopt, Child’s Way^® — a pediatric extended care center serving medically fragile infants and children, and a 24-bed Pediatric Specialty Hospital —  infant and pediatric units that provide short-term transitional care from hospital to home for children who are technology dependent and who may suffer from life-threatening illnesses. For more information, please call 412-441-4884 or visit www.childrenshomepgh.org.