Bens Buddies

Ben's Buddies is an all-volunteer charity who raise money for newborn medicine research by fellows at the Univ. of Minnesota Medical School

Ben's Buddies is a charity formed in 2007 by family and friends of a baby boy who was very ill at birth and survived precariously for 2 months of intensive care at Children’s of St Paul. Our mission is to empower and support families and friends who have suffered the loss of a child while raising funds for newborn research & education.

We do this through celebrating the birthdays of Ben and many other lost infants at a social each spring, and remembering them at a memorial golf tournament each fall. Many members of our Ben’s Buddies community also choose to give as part of corporate giving campaigns.

Over the years we have raised over $180,000 for an endowment at the University of Minnesota Medical School, which provides research grants to Fellows in the Neonatology program (newborn medicine) at the University of Minnesota. Funds from the endowment have been used to begin several research projects with great promise to positively impact the outcomes for babies with certain conditions. See our website for more details on these promising efforts.

Most of the attending physicians caring for newborns in the intensive care units in our community were trained via this fellowship program, and you will find fellows caring for newborns at the University of Minnesota Masonic Children's Hospital and Children's of St Paul NICU nearly 24X7 as part of their training to direct the care of these infants. Doctors performing this work may care for the child of a friend or family member of yours someday, and we want those children to have the best care available from doctors who choose to stay in our community to care for our newborns.

Please consider giving to Ben’s Buddies as part of your annual charitable giving and Give to the Max Day in Minnesota. Donations directly benefit the endowment at the University of Minnesota, and will help to ensure continued research into better outcomes for premature and critically ill newborns from the University. To read about Ben’s journey, please see the link to his Caring Bridge journal. Donations can also be made on the Ben's Buddies website, or directly to Ben’s fund at the University of Minnesota using the link at the bottom.

Thank you for your generosity and for being a part of Give to the Max Day in Minnesota!!

Ben's Fund Page at the University Foundation -giving.umn.edu/ben 

Caring Bridge Journal - http://classic.caringbridge.org/mn/benhanson/history.htm