WHAT:

UCSF Children’s Hospital will celebrate children and their families at the 14th annual Pediatric Transplant Picnic. Attending will be children – from infants to teens – who have had kidney, liver or intestinal transplants, children who are awaiting transplants, their families and their organ donors. This year’s picnic will have a circus theme, featuring a performance by the San Francisco School of Circus Arts, as well as a costume contest, dancing, face painting, kayaking, piñatas and crafts. Some 250 attendees from the Bay Area and throughout the country are expected to attend.

WHEN:

Saturday, August 1, 2009, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

WHERE:

McNear’s Beach Park, 201 Cantera Way, San Rafael, CA
From Highway 101, take the Central San Rafael exit and go east on Second Street (which becomes San Pedro Road) to Cantera Way.

WHO:

Pediatric transplant patients and their families, organ donors, physicians, nurses, social workers, child life specialists and research coordinators.

CONTACT:

To arrange interviews with UCSF leadership and/or patient families in advance, contact Kate Schoen at (415) 476-2557 or kschoen@pubaff.ucsf.edu. On the day of picnic, contact Chris Mudge at (415) 706-1451.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

Pediatric liver and kidney transplant services at UCSF Children’s Hospital are among the oldest children’s transplant services in the United States. Children have received transplanted kidneys at UCSF since 1964 and transplanted livers since 1989. UCSF pediatric specialists and transplant surgeons offer leading edge therapies and care for children with failing organs throughout their lives.

One of the nation’s top children’s hospitals, UCSF Children’s Hospital creates an environment where children and their families find compassionate care at the healing edge of scientific discovery, with more than 150 experts in 50 medical specialties serving patients throughout Northern California and beyond. The hospital admits about 5,000 children each year, including 2,000 babies born in the hospital. Medi-Cal patients constitute more than half of the hospital’s patient population.