The Walt Disney Company is celebrating the opening of the Shanghai Disney Resort with a $3.1 million donation to build play areas in Chinese hospitals. The donation will fund “Disney-themed play spaces and therapeutic play activities at more than 50 children’s hospitals across China over the course of the five-year program.” In addition to the new play spaces, tickets to Shanghai Disneyland will be given to the hospitals’ pediatric patients and their families.
Shanghai Charity Foundation and the China Soong Ching Foundation will administer the donation. Right to Play, “an international non-profit organization that uses the transformative power of play to educate and empower children to overcome adversity,” will design the spaces and programming.
Bob Iger, Disney Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, was at the Shanghai Children’s Medical Center when he announced the gift. In honor of the grand opening of Shanghai Disney Resort, we are creating a bit of Disney magic where it is needed most. With our gift of 20 million RMB and tickets to our new theme park, we hope to bring happiness and laughter to children and families in hospitals across the country by creating opportunities to play and spend quality time together.”
The Disney Company has a long history of working with children’s hospitals in their communities. Walt Disney began bringing the Disney characters and his animators to visit hospitalized children back in the 1930s. The company contributed to a whole pavilion dedicated to children at the Florida Hospital for Children. They provide financial support to the Children’s Hospital of Orange County in California.
News source: The Disney Blog
Photo credit: Disney
